Fêtes, Climbing Towers, and Settling In

I realized as I began to write this post that I have now been in Dijon for 3 weeks and in France for almost 4 weeks. And I can also now finally say that I feel settled into my new life here. The other day I was walking to the bus stop and all of the sudden I realized that it actually felt normal to be walking out of my house after eating my breakfast of bread and tea, and walking to the bus stop to take the bus to school. It even felt normal to be thinking all of this in French. After having three weeks of not feeling completely 100% comfortable in my surroundings, the feeling that it was all normal was very nice.

So I haven't updated at all since last weekend because this last week has been full of classes and getting homework done. Unfortunately I still have a 400 word essay to do by Tuesday but it will somehow get done. We also had a very busy, but fun-filled Wednesday this week. After class ended at 1pm I went with Caroline and Emily to my new favorite fresh pasta cafe for lunch. We then decided to climb up the tower of Dijon. There is a very tall tower attached to the Palais Des Ducs (Palace of Dukes)and at the top of it you can see the whole city of Dijon. It is only open a few days of the week so we decided to take the opportunity and go on Wednesday. So after buying our 1,20 Euro tickets, we climbed up the 315 steps to the top. The view was absolutely stunning and it also made me realize how big Dijon is. Since we live our lives only in our homestays, in centreville, and at Campus, we only see a very small part of what is a much bigger city. I also learned from my host mom when I told her about climbing the tower that the reason there are so many churches is because each church back in medieval times was responsible for their part of the city. So they had to do all the paperwork for weddings, births, deaths, plus take care of the orphans and sick people. This is why they could only be responsible for a small part of the city. We also from the top of the tower were able to see more of the fantastic tiling on the roof. It also reminded me from the top of all the buildings of those cute, little French towns you see in movies all the time in the US. It was quite incredible and I realized how much happier I am to be living in the city that I'm living in because it isn't touristy at all, and you are able to feel much more a part of the city instead of being lost in a huge city like Paris.

The last update from this week has to do with the first part of the title Fêtes which means party in French. This weekend we had a HUGE party at our house for the engagement of one of my host brothers, Thibaut and his fiancée Clemence. It was a very traditional French engagement celebration. My host mom worked all week on preparing food for the 40 people that were coming from all different parts of France. Also all the siblings came and we all helped my host mom get the last parts of the food ready on Saturday morning and afternoon. The celebration began with all of us going to mass at 6:30pm on Saturday. I understood everything that happened at the mass, but a lot of it I had to just stand there and listen because there were call and response parts where I had no idea what to respond with. Afterwards when I explained this to my twin sisters they responded with C'est pas grave which means, it's no big deal. Then we went to have a special benediction just for Clemence and Thibaut in the crypt. During the benediction I played in a trio with my two other host siblings, Emmanuelle on the flute and Antoine on the violin. It was so pretty and we had all played together that morning lots of different things, just sight reading and having fun. It was so great to be able to play music in a more carefree manner instead of having to make everything perfect. Plus it was a great exercise in sight reading.
Then after the mass, all 40 people returned to the house for our huge dinner which lasted 5 hours. I was really nervous about it considering the amount of people and having to speak French with all of them. But it turned out much better than I thought. I spoke to the grandparents who were all very nice, and then I spoke with a few other guests. For the most part however I hung out with my host siblings, and it was nice because it was an opportunity for us to all get closer. By the time the dinner was over at 1am though I was EXHAUSTED.
Then the last part of the celebration was brunch the next morning. So I woke up around 10am, and had to go back upstairs and converse with more people in French, and by this point I was just so exhausted from French, but I made it through, and everyone left around 3pm. We then helped my host mom clean up the house, and then it was over.
By the end I definitely finally understood the expression "brain dead" because my brain felt completely dead. But it was a really fun party with fabulous food and it was great to get to meet the whole family, and much less stressful than I thought it would be. I also feel lucky to have been able to experience something like this, because it's not something everyone would get the opportunity to experience. It was so cool to see this aspect of French culture, and being a part of the ceremony really made me feel like I was a part of the family! And seeing Clemence's engagement ring was pretty great too (It was a diamond encrusted flower with one diamond in the middle and two small diamonds on the side - it was one of the prettiest engagement rings I have ever seen)!

Well that's all I have for now - off to another week of classes! A bientot!

Une Voyage à Beaune

Yesterday we went on our first excursion which was to Beaune, the biggest city in the Bourgogne (Burgundy) region. This city is most famous for its wine and Hostel Dieu which was a free Hotel where poor people could go when they got sick. I will talk more about that later on in this post.
So we got to Beaune and were walking along and came upon this magnificent open market right in the middle of town. Dijon has a market like this as well on Saturdays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but Beaune's market is so much bigger. There were flowers, meat, and there was candy, lots of bread and soap, and so much more. It was incredible, it reminded me a lot of pike place market, but I liked it more, probably just because it was something different and it was so French.
After spending about a half and hour at the market we went off to Marché aux Vins which is a cave where they have all the different kinds of famous wines from Burgundy. We descended down into the dark cave and as we walked through we saw a new kind of wine probably every 10 feet. We were able to sample any of the ones we wanted and they were amazing. We all kept saying to each other that we wished wine always tasted this good. The picture is of the first wine we tasted. It was a white wine called Meursault and it was incredible. I was telling my host dad what we tasted when I got home from Beaune and he said that though Bourgogne is known for their red wines, he thinks that the white wines are even better. Considering I like white wine better I was completely in agreement. Although normally I really do not like red wine, but the red wine we tasted was also much better than anything I've ever had before.
After wine tasting we went to lunch which was also in a cave at this amazing restaurant where we had one of the best meals I have had while I've been here! The first course was soup which was a creamy soup with lots of cheese and balsamic vinegar and maybe some bread crumbs in it. Then we had risotto and then a cheese course. Most of the cheese I had had before but one cheese which was my favorite was a cheese like a cream cheese but with mustard in it. In the picture it is the one of the far left. Then after our cheese course we had dessert which was apple with some kind of orange zest in a cream with some kind of liqueur in it.
After lunch we went to the Hostel Dieu (Hotel of God) which is one of the most celebrated landmarks in Beaune and has been turned into a museum. We had a guided tour of the museum which was fantastic because then we were able to learn some of the history. Hostel Dieu was built in the 15th century by Nicolas Rolin who was chancellor to one of the Dukes of Bourgogne. He built the hotel solely for the poor so they would have someplace to stay when they got sick and would be able to get the medical attention they needed for free. He built this Hostel hoping that other parts of the kingdom of Bourgogne would follow. There were a few other hostels dieu but unfortunately his idea didn't spread as widely as he had hoped. The first picture on this post is of the outside courtyard of Hostel Dieu and as you can see the roofs have tiling like the ones in Dijon. It's almost hard to believe that this was supposed to be a hospital because it was so beautiful. The beds are also really nice, and there was a chapel with beautiful stain glass windows for the sick people to pray in. There was also a kitchen and a pharmacy that we were able to see, and we saw some of the instruments that they used for surgery back in the day. Let's just say I am so glad that I live in a time where we have more advanced equipment because surgery back then would have been painful. After the pharmacy our visit ended and of course we went off to explore the gift shop. Then after we got back on our bus and headed back to Dijon. It was quite an amazing trip and I can't wait for our next excursion which is to Les Chateaux de la Loire (Castles of the Loire Valley) which will be in only a couple of weeks.
A bientot!

Classes - 20 hours vs. 12 hours

So at UPS we only have about 12 hours of class a week, and only 4 classes. Here we have 11 classes and 20 hours of class or more per week. It is a lot of class, but the classes doesn't feel as long as I thought they would.

The only day where I pretty much felt totally brain dead was Thursday because we had 7 hours of class with only one half hour break for lunch. We also had a two hour grammar class that day which may have been the most painful two hours I have ever sat through in my life. The first hour was splitting sentences up and assigning functions to each part of the sentence. The professor used words like complement of an direct object, complement of an antecedent, and many other words I can't even remember. He also went through it all so fast assuming everyone in the class understood exactly what he was saying; apparently he didn't notice the 5 gaping Americans staring at him with looks of confusion. I'm pretty sure that in European education they learn this type of grammar but I have never been asked the function of a word in a sentence once in my entire 14 years of education, so needless to say I was completely confused. The next hour of grammar was spent going over conjugations in every tense of irregular verbs. This part was also done extremely fast and with no explanation which was a problem since he was introducing a tense that none of us had ever been expected to learn because it is only used in literature and never used in speaking - the passée simple (or the simple past). So now before next Thursday I have to figure out how it is conjugated and memorize all of the irregular conjugations. I would not care if it was actually useful knowledge, but it is mostly pointless knowledge that is not worth spending my time on since I will never use it unless I decide to write the next great French novel.

Other than that awful grammar class though the classes have been pretty easy and the two hours of each class have passed by very quickly which is surprising since we are so acclimated to the 50 minute class! And the best part about school here is we barely have any homework, and since each class is only once a week we have a week to complete what little homework we do have - that part makes spending 8 more hours in class worth it, because instead of leaving class with a mountain of homework (which is the case at UPS), we leave with one or two exercises.

We also started our culture courses this week, in level 5 we have to take 3 and I am taking art history, politics, and economics. These courses only meet every other week, so so far I have only had politics and art history. Art history was pretty terrible because the professor spoke really fast and I understood everything he was saying but was scrambling to write down notes fast enough. He also didn't have slides for our paintings so a whole amphitheater of students had to look at a picture of a painting by Kandinsky in a small book. Let's just say it didn't work at all! But I had politics today and it was really great, the professor was really awesome and even though it is a lot of stuff I had learned before it was interesting to get politics from a French perspective.

We are off to Beaune - the biggest city in Burgundy - tomorrow on an excursion with Nathalie which should be really fun! I am so ready to get out and explore new cities and travel! A bientot!

Des Grèves

So I realized that I forgot to add something very important in the last post - des grèves (aka strikes). So in France, well and in Europe in general, they exercise their right to strike quite often. We knew this before coming to France, but I was not prepared for how many strikes I would see here.

Our first witnessing of a strike was when we were trapped in one while walking through Picadilly Circus in London trying to find our hostel. This was probably the closest we've been to one so far, and it is really dangerous as an American to be trapped in a strike because we don't have the right to strike in Europe so we can get arrested so we got out of their protest as fast as we could.

The next strike we saw was some young people walking through the streets of Dijon yesterday. They were striking because they wanted more money, smaller class sizes and some other stuff that I couldn't really understand. We also almost got caught in the middle of this one, but Nathalie quickly steered us onto another street.

The third strike hasn't happened yet, but it is going to happen on Monday, our first day of classes, and this one is the most frustrating because it is a bus strike. That means that instead of taking a half hour bus ride to school, we have to walk an hour or more to school. I wouldn't mind if it wasn't on the first day of classes but nevertheless it should be quite the adventure and hopefully we don't get completely lost because it is on the outskirts of town and a 20 minute bus ride from any area of the city we know.

I'm sure there will be more stories about les grèves during our semester here...and I suppose it could be worse, we could have to walk through the snow to school.

3 Day Weekends Oooh la la la!

Today we received our levels of classes and also our emploi de temps (schedules) for the semester. I got into level 5 which is exactly what my french professor at UPS predicted, so I was very happy with that placement. I was also extremely happy with my schedule, not only does it work perfectly with my bassoon lesson time, but we also have 3 day weekends every other week which is perfect for traveling! Most days we don't have too many hours of class, the only day that is going to be pretty rough is Thursday where we have 7 hours of class with only one half hour break...that will be one long day, but the other days make up for it because we only have 2-4 hours of class every other day of the week. It's also a perfect schedule because we do not have class until 1pm on Mondays which means we can travel on the weekends, come home late on Sunday and not have to wake up early for class the next morning.

I also had to call my bassoon professor on the phone today to talk to her about arranging my lessons now that I had my class schedule. It was my first phone call in French, but it went much better than I thought it would, and I understood every word she said to me. I ended up having to write a letter to the director of the Conservatoire to approve me for lessons then I had to bring it by his office later today. Everything is much more formal here, you can't simply write emails all the time like you can in America. But hopefully the director approves me to take lessons and then I will be starting this coming Wednesday.

That's all the news from the other side of the world! A Bientot!

Visit to the Cassis Factory

So the second thing that the city of Dijon is known for is its Cassis - black currant liqueur. So today we visited a factory where they make cassis and lots of other kinds of flavored liqueur too. The manager of this factory was so nice and he gave us a tour of the whole factory and let us take as many pictures as we wanted. I must say we still look like complete tourists snapping photos of everything we see, but pretty soon we will not have to do that anymore because we will have passed all the new places a million times on our way to school or on our way to the bakery or on our way to the dozens of cute, little cafes. But right now it is all so new and so we constantly pull the cameras out.

It was pretty interesting to see how the whole process worked, and then after we got to sample 7 different kinds of liqueur which ranged from different fruits to chocolate to even cactus. Most of them were really yummy but there were definitely a few that I wouldn't try again. Also once we were completely finished with the tour the manager gave us little bottle of cassis to bring home. The way they use this liqueur here is they add it either to white wine or to champagne and it makes a drink called Kier. I'm hoping I can pack some Cassis and bring it home because kier is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! And Nathalie told us that if we buy cassis to bring home that we should buy it at the factory because it is the best cassis - and also the cheapest - in Dijon.

First Group Dinner

So every Wednesday night we have group dinners with all 10 Dijonettes (what we call our group) and Nathalie and then the host families of whoever is cooking. So for our first group dinner yesterday, Emily and Courtney cooked boeuf bourgignon for our main course and then they also had to prepare the l'entree (which is appetizer here - in America we apparently never understand french words, because the main dish here is plat principal not entree) and buy the dessert and wine. It was a great beginning to our weekly dinners and both Emily and Courtney were amazing chefs, it was probably the BEST meal I have had since I've been here. For the entree we had salad where we could add whatever vegetables we wanted to, and we also had three types of cheese, bread, and potatoes with green beans. Then we had the boeuf bourgignon for the main dish, and they also cooked ravioli for the vegetarians. Then for dessert we had chocolate cake and macaroons. It was FANTASTIQUE!

While it was amazing, it was also completely intimidating to have their dinner as our first dinner because next week Cha and I have to cook dinner and there is no way we can surpass that. These group dinners are great though because it gives us all the chance to have dinner together and also either try to make french dishes or make something from home - although with recipes from home that can be pretty hard because we have to convert to metric measurements. But, Cha and I are cooking something we don't need measurements for and our dessert will be classic american! It should turn out just fine and hopefully everyone likes our meal just as much as they liked the first meal.

My Room

So here are the promised pictures of my room...I have a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and another little table.




It's a nice room though it definitely does get pretty cold sometimes because it is in the basement and there is only a small heater. Also the bed is not the same as beds in America where we have lots of padding and box-springs etc...the bed here is just a very thin mattress on top of planks of wood which rest on the bed frame. It's not as comfortable as my bed at home but I'm getting used to it.



Here is my little table with all my make-up etc...and this is where I can do my make-up...it's a bit weird with a mirror divided in four like a window but it has been working out fine and it's nice to have space to spread out all my stuff. Also in this picture you can see the new small purse I bought at the Paris H&M. It is perfect for days when I don't need to bring much with me and is much less bulky than my longchamp bag. But on the days when I have to bring more stuff I can use my longchamp bag...it was a great purchase and only 12 euros which is SUPER cheap here!



Here is a picture of my desk and my wardrobe...the wardrobe is very nice and spacious as is the desk, and it's probably my favorite part of my room. I love how I can spread out so much stuff on my desk, and also this is the place where I have all the photos from home so it's a perfect little nook!



This part of my room is not super interesting, but it has the coat hanger for all my coats and scarves, and also the door that I can use to get in and out of my room! It's really nice to have a door to my room that is not the main door of the house because then if I come home late I don't disturb anyone in the house!

Well there is the grand tour....more posts to come soon

Dijon - La Ville de Moutarde

Finally today we tasted true Dijon Mustard, and I must say it's fabulous! We visited a shop that has been around since the 1800s, and it is the shop where they sell all sorts of Dijon Mustard. There is Apricot and Curry Mustard, Hazelnut Mustard, Blackberry liquor Mustard, White Wine Mustard, Fine Herb Mustard...and the list goes on. And it comes in really cute jars, or you can also get it from a machine that looks like where they keep beers on tap...so guess what everyone is getting for presents...you guessed right...Mustard!

The tasting of Mustard was a part of our tour through Dijon where we learned a lot about the history of the city, most of which dates back to the middle ages. We also saw the tiling on the roofs of buildings which is really famous and it's also something we will see in Beaune which we are visiting February 18, and it is the biggest city in the Burgundy region. Unfortunately I forgot my camera for the tour so I will try and go back and take some pictures and upload them later!

Today I also went to La Conservatoire Regionale de Dijon where I met my possible French bassoon teacher. I played my bassoon for her and I guess I played well enough because she said I could take lessons for her as long as my classes don't conflict with her open slot of time which is from 3:30-4pm on Wednesdays. I won't know if my classes conflict until Friday, but hopefully it will work out cause she is super nice (tres sympa - in French), and she even said I spoke well in French which at this point in my stay here is the best compliment ever. She also asked me if I wanted to play in an orchestra and I said yes, so she is going to ask and see if that is possible.

I was going to have to go to the conservatory by myself cause my host mom couldn't come but luckily Nathalie (our director) could go with me. It made me feel so much more comfortable to not be all alone especially since I had to handle everything completely in French.

Tomorrow we are having our first group dinner which is where we take turns cooking for the whole group and the 2 people who cook invite their host families to come as well. I'm really excited for the first one and to meet everyones host families.
We also should be finding out very soon our levels for our courses, and we get our complete schedule on Friday.

That's pretty much it for now. A bientot!

Exploring the City and Reviewing Grammar

Today is my second full day in my host family and I'm beginning to settle in much more and also understand them much better which is a huge relief. I guess now would also be a good time to introduce you to my host family. I have a host mother whose name is Christine, and she is so nice and has been helping correct my little mistakes when I speak and also summarizing the conversation when I don't understand. There is also a dad, Thibault, who I have only met briefly because he went on a ski vacation this weekend in Switzerland. There are also two 13 yr old twins, Marie Caroline and Philippine. They are very nice too and we have been talking a lot about the differences between America and France especially with schools. They have 7 classes a day and they go to school for 7-8 hours a day not including lunch. They also thought it was quite funny that in America we just eat sandwiches or salads for lunch because they normally have a hot meal.
I also watched a rugby match with Marie Caroline and I was completely confused but it is kind of like a cross between American football and soccer. Also Marie Caroline told me that rugby was WAY better than American football and that American football was pointless...actually according to the twins a lot of the things Americans do are silly or pointless...hahahaha!

So tomorrow starts our planned activities, and we begin bright and early at 9am with a placement exam and then we are going to all reunite at the Centre Condorcet (the apartment of our program Director Nathalie) and then we are going to a lecture later in the day about Dijon. I'm excited to have a schedule finally and have things to do because while this weekend was fun, it was a bit overwhelming to be constantly surrounded by a family you just met, and I think during the week it will be a bit easier.

I'm a bit nervous about the placement exam but I feel so much better now because my host mom helped me study after lunch and she is also going to help me after dinner, so I think I should be very prepared, and at this point I just can't wait till it's over.

I also explored Dijon a little bit with my friend Justine, but there wasn't really a lot to explore cause it was Sunday and so everything was closed - another difference between France and America. But we walked around and the city is so pretty. I will post pictures soon of my room and Dijon!

That's it for now as I'm off to dinner for some more conversing in French!

A Bientot! (A French expression that is similar to see you later)

First Days in Dijon

So I was not going to write a blog cause I didn't know if I would have time to update it enough, but I decided that it would probably be a good idea, since it would be impossible to tell everyone all that I did when I got home after being here for 5 months.
I arrived in Dijon at my host family's house yesterday evening and as I was unpacking I finally started to realize I was going to be in this room and this new house for 5 whole months! Up until now it felt like we were just on vacation because we were constantly moving around from Edinburgh to London to Paris, but now we are finally at our home bases! It is really exciting but at the same time completely overwhelming, because it is so hard to switch gears completely to another language and sometimes I just want to speak English. I thought my French would be fine since I could speak with our director in Paris and I could converse with the Parisiens, but now I know that they were just speaking very slow since they knew we were Americans.
Once I arrived here the French sped up so much and I couldn't follow half of the dinner conversation, but my host mom is really nice and understanding, so every so often she would summarize the conversation for me. Also since my head is full of so much information my French isn't as good as it could be, but I am sure it will get better with time.
To get over all the stress and being overwhelmed of being in a house by myself, I went into town for the saturday morning market and I met a friend from my program there, Justine. That helped a lot to have someone to vent back and forth with and just to get over all the nervousness. Also the market was so cute, I definitely want to go back cause they have boots and clothes for 20 Euros which is amazing for here.
That's all for now because I need to go finish unpacking, but I will update again soon.