My first "draguer" experience

Today, I had my first "draguer" experience. In France, it is completely common and normally for men to approach women who are by themselves and talk to them. The verb in French, I learned today, is draguer, which loosely translated means to chat up. It does not necessarily involve any intention of actually dating the person, like we would associate in America. It's just French. I had a professor at Ball State that told stories about a female student he knew that studied abroad in Paris. Her technique for avoiding these conversations was to stand up and start babbling like a crazy person whenever a man approached her. Another student he knew timed how long she could sit alone in a cafe before someone approached her. It was something like 5 minutes. I knew that I would have deal with this unique aspect of the French culture, and today was the day.

I just started a 2 week vacation and all of my roommates have plans with their respective significant others and families, so I am on my own for most of the time. I have some larger plans for the weekend, but today I just decided to visit Valence-Ville, a larger town south of us. It has some neat old churches and isn't far away. After walking for a few hours this morning, I came to a nice plaza area with some benches and decided just to sit and enjoy the sun, since it was slightly chilly. An elderly man, probably around 60 or 70, rode his bike past me and said something, but I didn't catch it because he was traveling quickly the other direction. He turned around and came back to tell me that I am very beautiful. I explained that I don't speak French very well, so he decided just to ask simple questions: where I'm from, why I'm in France, if I have a boyfriend (he was surprised that I was married), and what all I was seeing in Valence. Through out all of this he told me about 6 times that I was very beautiful. We only chatted for about 2 minutes and then he went to leave. He asked if it was okay to do the bises (French greeting of kissing the cheeks), and I said yes. I've exchanged the bises with multiple people, including men, without any problem. And then he tried to do a 3rd close to the lips and I said no, that wasn't okay with me. He then genuinely apologized for making me uncomfortable and said au revoir, reminding me again that I was very beautiful.

Overall, it was an odd experience. I didn't feel threatened in any way or that he was trying to take advantage of me. I think he really felt sorry for making me uncomfortable. It's kind of flattering, and I knew it would probably happen at some point, but it still really weirds out the American part of me. It didn't have anything to with what I was wearing, because it was cold out and my winter jacket was zipped all the way up (not that I was wearing anything weird). He made a comment that people must try to "draguer" me a lot. I didn't know what the word meant so he explained and I said that this was the first time and he was surprised. That comment, that this must happen all the time just points to the idea that it's a part of French culture. Thus far, I realized I have always been with groups or going somewhere. This was the first time that I had ever lingered somewhere by myself. I didn't linger by myself for the rest of afternoon and will try not to again. While I wasn't in any danger, it was awkward.

Overall, a learning experience about the French culture. I'm still kind of scratching my head my head over the whole incident and how to deal with it better the next time.

Mort d'un Commis Voyageur

Wednesday, October 24

Yesterday I spent all afternoon and evening in Lyon with a group of students on a field trip. We went to see a production of Death of a Salesman. The day was a lot of fun. We had a 2 hour Q&A session with the director at 2. She explained how she translated the play with a combination of literal translation and adopting the translation for the French culture. She talked about the simplicity of the set and props, which was really interesting. And for anyone that knows the play, there are multiple flashbacks, which were indicated simply by changing the color of the stage lights. It was nice to have this preview before seeing the actual play later that evening.

After the Q&A session, we had 3 hours to kill before we had to meet again for the actual performance. So the students were turned loose in Lyon. Another teacher took the time to show me around 2 quarters of Lyon: Presqu'isle and Vieux Lyon. Presqu'isle (Almost an Island) is called that because it's almost an island. Lyon is where two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône come together to become the Rhône and this neighborhood is on the thin strip of land between where the rivers converge. It has many restaurants and shopping areas. Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon) is the old section of the city, as in Roman ruins. We just walked a little in this area, so I want to go back and do some more exploring. 

The play was in the Célestins Theater, which is beautiful. I don't know any information about it, but I wish I could have gotten pictures of the inside. There wasn't really time before or after the play and I was sitting in the highest balcony, which meant that I could not get pictures of the murals on the ceilings and the detail work that lined the balconies. It was amazing! The play itself was intense. I have never seen it performed in English, so I don't really have anything to compare it to. But I really enjoyed it. It proved to be a late night, but was definitely worth it. This is the theater all lit up before we went inside.

The rest of this week should fly by! And then we have a 2 week vacation. Hopefully I will have all kinds of fun stories to share.

From Lyon with love

Exploring Roussillon

Sunday, October 21

The past week has flown by and most of it as just been classes and life, so I'm not sure what all to share with everyone. The welcome with the mayor last Saturday was interesting. The castle was built in 16th century for an Italian cardinal, so the architecture is Italian in style, not French. The cardinal was an advisor to François 1st. And then in 1564 Charles IX and his mother, Catherine de Médicis stayed at the castles to escape some epidemic in Lyon, I believe. And while he was here, he signed the Edict of Roussillon, making January 1 the b beginning of the new year for all of France. Apparently up to that point, everyone had the same calender, but celebrated the new year on a different date. So within 50 kilometers of Roussillon, you could have 3 different years happening. It would be fun to go back and do the full tour of the castle, since we only got to see a small portion.

We had two other fun engagements last week. One was lunch with a woman named Elliet. She is married to a French man who works in the municipal government, but she is from Nicaragua. Every year she reaches out to the assistants, especially the Spanish one, and feeds them and is just a friend. And because her husband is in the government, I guess they have some pull if we need something. They have helped assistants in the past get new things for the apartment when something broke. She is very kind and lunch was delicious. We had some kind of curry chicken, rice, and zucchini in some kind of cream sauce.

The other fun thing was a dinner last Friday that the high school teachers had for us. They took us to a nice restaurant and we ate for 4 hours. The food was okay, but was very similar to anything we would in the US. The only exception was the foie gras and the length of time. But even though we ate for that long, we didn't eat that much. Dinner was 4 courses. The first was the wine aperitif, with wine (obviously) and some tapinade. The second was a small salad (like 4 pieces of lettuce) and a thing of foie gras for the bread. Although, it was not just foie gras, it was foie gras fondant. Apparently it was mixed with some kind of pate to make it smoother. It was still very good. Then dinner was the leg of small fowl with mashed potatoes and mushrooms. And dessert was chocolate and vanilla mousse (a small serving of each) with a small cookie. It was fun to listen to all of the teachers talk during dinner. I couldn't keep up with everything they were talking about, so it was very exhausting, but good practice.

I am slowly learning some things in Spanish and German. I can now say “Yo he camido tortilla de patatas” and “Ich habe tortilla de patatas gegessen” with both mean I ate tortilla de patatas. Tortilla de patatas is something the Spanish assistant found in the grocery store and she eats a lot of. It's a potato and onion kind of casserole/quiche thing. It's pretty good.

Other than that, everything has just been life and classes, which are still going relatively well. I am doing some activities about Halloween this week, which should hopefully be fun. I am also going on a field trip with some students on Tuesday to Lyon to see “The Death of a Salesman.” There is a Q & A with the director before and then the play the evening. All in French, but hopefully I can follow most of it. There is just this next week left of classes and then we have a 2 week break. I still don't really know what I'm doing for it. Most likely things relatively close and cheap, but thanks to the train, that can really mean anything.

From Roussillon with love

Finding a routine

Thursday, October 11

I started my classes this week, which has been interesting. My schedule is very confusing. I am only in the classroom 12 hours a week, but I am in 18 different classes. All of my classes I have for 1 hour and I am in some every week and others every other week. So I will still be introducing myself in classes until next Friday, which seems odd because I will meet these students for an hour and then not see them for a month. The schools here are on a year round schedule, so they get 2 week breaks fairly frequently, and one happens at the end of October, beginning of November. So I will meet them next week, not be in their class the next week, and then be on vacation for 2 weeks.

While I am teaching in two middle schools, the youngest students that I have are 14. Middle school is just a rough translation. Most of my jobs simply focuses on talking with the students, helping them with pronunciation, and creating any kind of dialogue. So for the lower level classes, that means a lot of games and activities that force them to talk and in the older classes, we will have debates, analyze photos and news articles write skits.

Thus far, everything has gone fairly well. Some students are more motivated than others, just like in any school, but I haven't had any behavior issues and the students have been genuinely excited to meet me. The city I am in has a chemical factory. One of the teachers was telling me that the presence of the factory makes it difficult get funding for renovations, so the school is older. But all of the necessities for the classroom function alright.

The school is really a reflection of Roussillon. The city is kind of dirty because of the factories. While it's small, everyone drives so the roads are very busy and the town limits are right next to neighboring towns. So while Roussillon only has 7 or 8 thousand residents, there are 4 other towns with 4 thousand residents right next to it, so it feels bigger than that in some respects. We are slowly discovering things to do here. We have been told that there is a move theater, even though we haven't found yet. They are sports clubs to join, a community center with classes and cultural events, and community bus that we can take to the closest mall. So while Roussillon is not Lyon or Paris, the people are nice and I enjoy being here.

The only other adventure we took was to Vienne last Saturday. A beautiful town of about 30,000 people, Vienne has a very rich history, dating back to the Romans. There is a Roman theater and a temple that was built in 10 BC. There are also several churches and buildings from the Middle Ages, including a beautiful cathedral. We did the self-guided walking tour (2 miles) around the city. We didn't pay to actually go in and see anything, but I took tons of pictures. Vienne is only 2 stops north on the train (only 5 euros round trip) so it was the perfect day trip. The picture is the inside of a Renaissance cathedral.

Besides finishing classes this week, me and my roommates are invited to an open house at city hall, which is an 18th century castle, for all of the new arrivals in the city. I think we get to meet the mayor and tour the castle, so that should be fun. Although we haven't received our official invitation yet, we are supposed to call to get the details. Hope fully it will be fun!

From Roussillon (and Vienne) with love

Early Adventures

Thursday, 4 October

So, I have the whole weekend to share and every day was full of something, so this will be rather long. There should less excitement once I start classes next week.

So the end of my last post was excitement about going to Lyon. It wasn't fun. Since we didn't have internet, we couldn't plan and we got there too late in the afternoon to really explore the historical sections that are further from the train station. So we just decided to walk around the station. Aparrently, everything in Lyon, including the majority of the cafes, are closed on Saturday. So the only thing to do was go to the mall, where the rest of Lyon was spending the afternoon. So there wasn't much to do besides walk aimlessly, and it was kind of cold. The only bright spot was that we finally found a place to have a cup of coffee, so I have my first café et crème français. It was quite tasty!

Sunday, we walked around Le Péage de Roussillon. It really isn't a super nice town. There are some bakeries and pastry shops that I want to try. We slowly wandered into the historical section of Roussillon, which is up and over a hill from the school. There is a really old church there, with some beautiful views of the Massif Central. I'm not sure about the details of the church. I haven't the time or access to internet to really research it.

Our orientation for the program was Monday and Tuesday. We left at 7:30 Monday morning to get to Grenoble, the central city of the region, by noon (lots of waiting at places). Thankfully, a round trip train ticket is only 25 euros. The first day was mostly boring, administrative things. But Grenoble is nestled in a valley of the Alps and is beautiful!!! Monday evening we went to Autrans, a small skiing village up in the Alps. The second day was much more helpful. There were activities about lesson planning and guidelines for running the classroom. We left Autrans at 4:30 and walked around Grenoble for 45 minutes before our train. I took some great pictures and really want to go back and fully explore the city. It isn't a huge city, so not too intimating, but very beautiful and lots of history!

And then it was all down hill from there. Our train from Grenoble to Lyon was late, so we missed our connection to Le Péage de Roussillon, which isn't not a huge deal, because one runs every hour. So we waited the 45 minutes for the next train and with 10 minutes to go, they decide to have a fire drill. I understood the emergency announcement, so that was good. So we were fearing missing our train, which would have been terrible because it was the last one for the night, and instead we ended being 45 minutes delayed because of the drill and the havoc it created on the train schedule. And after all that, we still had the 15 minutes walk to the school, which doesn't sound like a lot, but tonight it was. So instead of arriving at the apartment shortly after 9, we got there at 11, after leaving Autrans at 4:30. It was a long day.

Wednesday was not much better, since it consisted only of trying to figure out the bureaucratic nightmare that is France. We are still trying to get internet in the apartment, so I can skype and use the internet after school hours. For right now, I just have access to school computers. But, we opened bank accounts Thursday, and will hopefully get signed up for internet tomorrow. Although it might still take a few weeks to get it installed.

Besides that mess, things are well. My French is slowly getting better. I can now understand how awful I sound and how many mistakes I make, so I think that means I am getting better. I am enjoying the French food. I have now had café coffee and multiple croissants and baguettes. The food selection for shopping is a little different (there is an entire 4 aisles dedicated to milk products, like butter, cheese and cream, and oddly, the carts are different. On American carts, the front wheels do the turning and on the French, the backs wheels turn), and our kitchen is very tiny. We do have a stove and an oven. But I don't know how to use the oven yet, and I don't think you can fit a 9x13 in it. And we have very limited pots and pans, so meals have to be simple and easy.

I start my classes tomorrow (Friday), mostly just to introduce myself to students. My real schedule starts Monday. I think some of roommates want to go to Grenoble this weekend, but I would like to just rest.

With love from Roussillon

Adjusting

Friday, Sept. 28

So, I have now been here for a full day and I seem to be adjusting ok. We have had a problem with the internet in our apartment. We have a wireless network set-up, but no one seems to know the password for it. This afternoon, we tried to find the man at the school who is supposed to help us, but he had already left for the weekend. But the last 24 hours have been eventful, nonetheless.

I boarded my 11:58 train with no real issues. There was hardly any room for my suitcases, but a nice French lady helped me move things around to make space. I got the station with barely anytime to catch my next train, because I had to buy my ticket at a counter since the machines do not take cash. Again, I bought the ticket all in French. I am sure the lady at the counter laughed at me after I left. I only had 5 minutes to catch the train, which isn't necessarily a big deal, but dragging two heavy suitcases makes it much more difficult. Anyway, I got to the platform completely out of breath, and then the train was delayed for 20 minutes. Oh, well. I arrived at my stop and waited only 15 minutes for Anne to pick me up. She was very nice and drove me around Roussillon a bit before taking me to school and my apartment.

Shortly after I arrived, the German assistant got here as well. Her father was with her, and they are both very nice. She speaks English also, so that is helpful for making sure we both understand French. And then later, the Spanish assistant arrived. She only speaks Spanish and French. So, that means French almost all the time in my apartment, which I thought would be a big deal, but so far it is okay. I think that is because we all speak relatively slowly, but I do not have the major headache I was planning on, so I believe that's good. Our contact people treated us to Moroccan last night, which was nice since we did not have time to go grocery shopping. I ended up going to bed at 8:30.

I slept until after 10 this morning, but that seems to be all that I needed to switch time zones. I'm a little tired now, but it's after 11 here. Since my German roommate (L~) and her father rented a car until he leaves tomorrow, he kindly drove us all around today. We went to the big supermarket in the next town over so we could simply buy everything that we needed and then he took us for a drive in the across the Rhône River, which is just west of the village. We went into the beginnings of the Massif Central, the mountain plateaus in south central France. It is actually quite close and it was neat because from the mountains we drove up in the Massif Central, we could see the Alps to the east. I got some neat photos that I will post when I have access to internet. This evening the Italian assistant arrived, and she speaks a little English, but we have really only spoken in French today. L~ and I speak in English a little bit, but not often. We all want to improve our French, so that means we have to use it.

We got a TV in the apartment today. Only French channels, but the interesting thing is that so many shows are American, just dubbed. We watched NCIS, one of the criminal shows that takes plane in Miami (the name was a weird translation), and the old Adventures of Superman and Lois Lane. All in French, but some had subtitles which was helpful. The car has to be returned tomorrow, so we are all driving to Lyon and dropping of the care and L~'s father at the airport and then we are exploring Lyon for few hours and then coming back before the last train. It should be fun!

From Roussillon with love

I'm here!

Note: I know this is delayed, but the internet in our apartment does not work and this is the first opportunity that I have had to post anything. Rest assured, I did write this last Thursday.

I have arrived! I am sitting in the SNCF train station waiting for my 11:58 train. It is only 8:15. I have a while to entertain myself. I really can't believe that I am here so early. The plane arrived almost 45 minutes early and then legally entering the country only took about 30 seconds. And then my bags were the first out at baggage claim and the way to the train station was very clearly marked, so now I am two hours earlier than I had anticipated. Which gives me plenty of time to change clothes, and use the computer in theory, but my adapters were not so smartly put in my checked bags at the bottom. Not so smart.

My flight over was mostly amazing. I woke up about 2 hours before we landed feeling kind of sick, but I think it was a mixture of rich food (a 4 course dinner), being cold, turbulence and nerves. Other than that the flight was amazing. I got a first-class window seat. It was cloudy most of the flight so I could not see anything on the ground, but watching the sunset over the tops of the clouds was really neat. It was nice to almost completely lay down in my seat. The 4 course dinner was good, as was breakfast this morning. The guy next to me was really nice. He was from Lexington, KY and while I don't know his name or what he does at all, he was very helpful in explaining all the first-class gadgets to me (like the flight tracker that is built into each seat's touchscreen so you can see where the plane is at) and how going through customs and things went.

On the language thing, I have already spoken French to some people: the lady who changed my money and the guy who kept me from falling down the escalator (that kids, is why you aren't supposed to take large suitcases on escalators). I can understand the programmed announcements here at the station, which is encouraging. Of course, they repeat them in English, but I understand the French version first. I can also eavesdrop a little, which is funny. But they have to be speaking slowly.

From my TGV train at 11:58, I arrive in Lyon at 2. I should catch the 2:20 out of Lyon towards Marseille, which should take my straight to Le Péage de Roussillon, where Anne, a teacher from my school will there at 3:30 pick me up. She will show me my school and apartment. I meet two of my roommates today and the third arrives tomorrow.

I know this is kind of a rambling writing, but I have had only 3 or 4 hours of iffy, interrupted sleep. This weekend, or early next week, I will writing something more coherent and meaningful. But for now I am going to wait some more. Probably drink some coffee too.

From Paris SNCF CDG2 with love