It is now Tuesday evening, and I am now on the train on the way back from Rennes, having spent two days and one night there. I am probably going to be posting this entry tomorrow morning, along with the others I wrote, so the timeline might be a little confusing.
The purpose of our trip to Rennes was to meet with a team of researchers at the University of Rennes 2. Rennes is a much smaller city that is two hours away by the TGV, and even right now I’m still not sure which direction from Paris it lies. We left the Gare Montparnasse in Paris at 9:00 am yesterday. I used the train time to catch up on my blog and get a little sleep. When we arrived at the Rennes train station, we were greeted by the professor and two graduate students that would be with us for our stay. We bought metro/bus passes for the two days, then took the metro to the university stop. Just to give you an idea of its size, Rennes only has one metro line, compared to Paris’s 15ish, and it will take you across the city in about 15 minutes. So, we quickly arrived at the station where it was only a short walk to the university dorm where we would be staying. We got our keys, and I was surprised to find out that we each had individual rooms, but I would soon see why. I was expecting a dungeon, but I was pleasantly surprised by the newish dorms where we would be staying. All the rooms were singles and very small, but also very space efficient. There were numerous shelves and drawers fit in across the wall. A smaller bed was set into the right side wall, while the right side was taken up by a desk and more shelves and cabinets. I was wondering how far down the hall I’d have to trek for a bathroom, but then I found it: each room had its own tiny bathroom, practically like a little capsule. The floor probably measured 4x4ft, and in it was squeezed a shower, toilet, sink, and even some shelves. It was almost futuristic, like what an astronaut might be accustomed to. Overall, the room was cute, clean, and new. While it might feel a little cramped after a while, I could definitely see myself living in such a space as a student.
After dropping off our stuff, we went to have lunch at the university cafeteria. Overall, I’d say it was fairly comparable to a US university dining hall, except in this case it was not of the all-you-can-eat buffet variety. Instead, there were little stations where you could get a main item and a couple side things, and then you could still get a certain number of other plates, like other sides or a dessert. I ate with Vanessa alongside Dr. Blondeau and Thierry Bulot, the main professor we would be listening to. They had a lively conversation about various linguistic and university topics that I was glad to listen in on.
After lunch, we headed through the university to the room where we’d be having the day’s conferences. The campus was much more of a real campus, unlike the Nouvelle Sorbonne we had visited in Paris. There were assorted buildings and green space, and cars could not pass through. Even so, it wasn’t as nice as a typical American campus, and the dreary weather did not help the atmosphere. The room we were in was not a classroom, I don’t think, but more of a room in a research hall, but it was difficult to classify. Along with us, some other Rennes university students sat in on the lecture.
First, we watched a short movie that had been made in the past few years about immigrants in Rennes and their different attitudes toward multiculturalism in the city, etc. My general impression was that multilingualism is viewed positively, and people can identify with multiple cultures. After the movie, about 15 minutes long, we started straight into the conferences. Thierry Bulot, the professor at the Université de Rennes 2, presented some of his research concerning attitudes toward multilingualism, and then the two graduate students also presented some of their research. Their presentations were a little harder to understand, not on the level of the language, but because they assumed some prior knowledge that we didn’t really have.
Note: I am back in Gainesville and am just finishing up this post now. Details as I remember them.
After the presentations, we had a little bit of technically free time. However, it was cold and raining and everyone was dead tired, so we unanimously decided to go take a quick nap in the dorms before dinner. For dinner, we went to a nice restaurant near the train station. It was one of the group meals included in our program, so naturally it was very good. In France I grew accustomed to eating multiple courses at restaurants, especially dessert, which I rarely do here. At this particular restaurant, I had some sort of calamari appetizer, steak with gorgonzola cheese sauce, and then crème brûlée for dessert. All the food was great, except for one detail. They gave me fries with my steak, and I wasn’t expecting to get ketchup, but there it was in a little packet on the table. Perfect, right? Wrong. I opened this ketchup and it was the very worst ketchup I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t even know what it tasted like, but I took one bite and could have no more. But regardless, it was a nice dinner (can you tell I ate very well in France?) and I had a chance to talk a little bit with one of the grad students in the group, also.
After dinner, we just returned to the dorms to get ready for bed. Unfortunately, somehow that night was the turning point for me when I began to get sick, beginning with an awful sore throat that since evolved into a nasty cold/congestion/cough business which I am still recovering from. So, in the morning, I wasn’t feeling that great, but I was well enough to go on with the scheduled activities for the day.
After getting breakfast in a little café, we met our two grad students, Claire and Aude, to do a few site visits in Rennes, similar to what we had already been doing in Paris. First, we took a bus about 20 minutes out to go to a small neighborhood market. It was fairly small and seemed to be dominated by an older population. What was interesting was that it was in a more residential area, with actual houses driveways, unlike what I had been seeing so far in big-city Paris. As far as the market itself, it wasn’t anything new, but there were some interesting stands selling organic products as well as varieties of local honey.
After that market, we went to a second one closer to the downtown area, which I believe is kind of a permanent market with a permanent structure. This was also pretty standard, with numerous shops selling various food products. One fish shop in particular had some live items on the ice- I could see some little tentacles or legs creeping around. There was also another that had live crabs in a tank, but of course you can see that in Florida also.
After that walkthrough, we had one more official stop to make. We were scheduled to meet with an organization called Âge de la Tortue (Age of the Turtle), which is an organization for artists. We took the metro out to one of the farthest stops to a neighborhood that is populated predominantly by immigrants. The housing had been built to accommodate those moving to the city at a time when not much other housing was available, so there were a lot of high rise apartment complexes, but not really of a luxurious nature. It was also an area where, according to the survey that Thierry Bulot had mentioned the previous day, people speak the “worst” French. So, it wasn’t the highest-class area, but it certainly wasn’t dangerous. Claire led us to apartment where we met one of the leaders of the organization, and she explained how it functions. The organization has two apartments where artists stay during the duration of the projects, normally about two weeks. Their projects are really varied- she showed us books where strangers can write each other letters; they have done performances in a caravan for one single audience member at a time; and one of their current projects entailed putting up blank wooden boards around the area to see how people would start using them. It was fairly interesting over all, but I didn’t really see the supposed link with sociolinguistics. I found out later that the connection was really more about sociology of language, if that makes any sense. After the little info session, the organization leader led us around a bit in the neighborhood just to get a feel for it. It wasn’t really impressive, but still informative, and we got to see the wooden boards that the group had erected, which had already begun to be used for putting up some notices. She also walked us down to a local social-work type place where people can get help for various issues, as well as a local art center. However, she explained that unfortunately the actual neighborhood residents don’t use the art center as much as outsiders.
After that visit, we had a couple hours to wander the city before heading back to the dorm to get our stuff and check out. We all headed downtown to just do some shopping and looking around. It was a pretty area and great for pedestrians. It also didn’t have the same big-city feel as Paris. People seemed friendlier and less detached and there wasn’t the insane traffic and busy streets as in Paris. Overall, it reminded me a French version of Heidelberg, the small city near Mannheim that we visited on several occasions. My friends and I just went into whatever shops we thought interesting, and it was at this time that I bought my obligatory elephant item. It was in a kitchen gadget shop, and I bought a really cute elephant apron, which is one elephant item that I didn’t have previously.
After a couple hours, we met up with the group to back to the dorms to get our stuff. Then we checked out and headed to the train station to catch the TGV back to Paris. By the time we got back, it was close to 9:30, so I didn’t do much else that day, especially because I was feeling under the weather (and over the weather!). I had enjoyed our little trip to Rennes but was also glad to be back “home” in Paris!
I still have 3 more days to document, so keep reading!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Brief Final Day Update
Bonjour tout le monde,
Aujourd'hui, c'est ma dernière journée ici à Paris. Je n'aurai pas probablement le temps d'afficher une autre note jusqu'à demain dans l'avion. Mais je vous promets de tout décrire quand j'aurai du temps libre!
à Gainesville!
Aujourd'hui, c'est ma dernière journée ici à Paris. Je n'aurai pas probablement le temps d'afficher une autre note jusqu'à demain dans l'avion. Mais je vous promets de tout décrire quand j'aurai du temps libre!
à Gainesville!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Loooong Catch-up Post of Doom
It’s been a few days since I wrote, so I hope I remember everything. The days go by so quickly, and we do so much every day. As the old Rickards saying goes, I’ll just do the best I can.
On Friday, we had had tentative plans to visit a middle school to start looking at the language of the youth, but unfortunately the tentativeness did not go in our favor, and for whatever reason, the trip was canceled. Luckily, we still have another school visit planned for next week, so we will not completely miss out. Instead of going out to the school, we met at the PRC to watch a film. It was called Bienvenue Chez Les Ch’tis, and it actually on TV as we speak. The movie is about a French man from the south of France who goes to live in the North for a new job, and we see his trials and tribulations as he adjusts to small town life. Much of the movie also focuses on the particularities of the way the French speak in that area; there are numerous misunderstandings and language-related incidents. Their style of speaking includes lots of ‘ch’ (pronounced sh) sounds where normal French would just have ‘s’. So, les Ch’tis would say “chest cha” for the regular expression “c’est ça”. There were plenty of other differences as well, especially in pronunciation, but there were also differences in vocabulary and a little bit in morphology/syntax. So, it was interesting to look at from a linguistic perspective, and we had a good discussion following the film. We watched the movie with French subtitles, which I think is the best way to go. If you have them in English, you end up just reading, but without any subtitles, you can get completely lost. Unfortunately, I’m not yet at that level where I can watch French movies and understand everything. And having non-standard speech as in this movie would just add to the confusion. It was an enjoyable film, though, and quite funny.
After the film, I worked in the PRC library on some homework and wrote the previous blog entry. By the time I was done, I had just enough time to grab a quick quiche-like lunch at the nearby sandwicherie which I have visited at least a couple times on the trip. From there, I headed out with my classmates to the next group activity, a group discussion at a café.
The PRC had suggested the particular location because they seemed to feel it was like a youth hangout of some kind. That might be true, but it was also a very unique experience. It was not a normal café with tables inside and out, nor did it even have a menu or waiters. It was actually a manga café, where people can go and read and buy manga (Japanese comic books/graphic novels, essentially), hang out on couches, use the wifi, and play video games. They had shelves of manga lining the store, numerous modern-looking couches and bean bag chairs, and Japanese art on the walls. You could read as much manga as you could want and also drink as much soda or hot beverages as you wanted, and you paid by the hour. We didn’t have to pay, as it was on the PRC, and it was an interesting setting for our discussion, even though I’m not huge into manga. And sure enough, there were numerous young people patronizing the establishment, from about 12 years old up to others in their 20s. We had a group discussion about the activities from the day before and talked about our various observations, especially concerning the language of younger people. Before the trip, we had been required to see two films, so we discussed those as well.
After the café, we were free for the day. I had plans to meet up with my friend Erica at my hotel, but I still had some time to kill, so I accompanied my friends to a nearby church, the Église Saint Étienne. Usually, these type of churches all look the same to me, and this was not really an exception. Of course, it was big and majestic and ornamental and beautiful, but to me, there was nothing particularly striking about it. I think I’m just all cathedraled out. There are so many in Europe- although I remember very particularly Kaiser Wilhelms Gedächtnis Kirche in Germany (although even right now I’m struggling to remember what city it was in- have to check my blog!). After the cathedral, we wandered around a little bit, but by then I needed to catch the metro back to the hotel to meet Erica.
We found each other successfully, and she and her friend Alex, who was traveling with her, came up to my room for a few minutes to chat and decided what to do. They had already been in Paris for a night and had spent the day wandering the city, so we decided to head out to St-Michel to get dinner. We found a reasonable place which ended up turning out nicely. It was quiet and we were able to talk and catch up. She told me all about her current program in Munich, and we reminisced about all of our old European travels and told Alex some of the best (and most horrific) stories. Our food was good too- I even had the classic escargot. My main course was salmon and pasta and I had some cheese for dessert. It was quite obviously not an haute cuisine, white tablecloth French restaurant experience, but it was good nonetheless.
After dinner we wandered about the area, visiting some souvenir shops and going into (and quickly exiting) a couple nightclub-ish type places, which were very empty and/or weird. We did quite a bit of walking, ending up passing by the Panthéon and Luxembourg Gardens, among other things. Eventually, we grew tired and parted ways to our respective hotels (theirs was an apparently very sketchy hostel) for the night, agreeing to meet the following day at Notre Dame at 4.
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The next day was Saturday. Although some PRC programs had the whole weekend off, we did not. We met in the lobby at 10 to head out to another market, the Marché d’Aligre, which is fairly well known. My professor actually invited Erica and Alex to come along, but they politely declined as not to intrude. I realized later though that their hostel was pretty much right next to the market, so they could easily have seen it on their own. Alas. This market was much larger than the other and much more diverse. There was an inside portion with numerous stalls, mostly food related, and then other stalls lined the streets outside. There were tons of fruit and vegetable vendors selling all types of things, but then there was also an area where people were selling clothes, new and used, as well as more garage-sale type items. There were also tons of people, and the whole scene was very lively and busy. Merchants shouted out prices trying to get attention for their products, and others offered samples of the fruit to lure people in. It was a little hard to tell where most of the fruit came from; I’m guessing a good bit of it was local, but people also advertised New Zealand kiwis, Hawaiian pineapples, and even Florida grapefruit. There was tons of opportunity for observation, and I got some good notes. I bought 5 kiwis for 2 Euro as well as 1 kilo of strawberries for another 2 Euro, as we were supposed to get lunch for our picnic later. I did not realize just how many strawberries 1 kg is- it was a ton and I still had some left over later even after sharing them with everyone. My fingers turned bright red from the juice, but they were nice and sweet.
After meeting at the meeting point after about an hour of observation, we walked over to the picnic area, seeing the Bastille and the new national opera house on the way. We had our picnic in the Place des Vosges, which is a gorgeous square little park. It has a very symmetrical feel, as it is surrounded by identical beautiful architecture on all sides. The house of Victor Hugo is right next door (somewhere?), but we never found it, since everything looked the same! The park was decently populated, with families walking around and couples sprawled on the grass. The trees were in bloom and nicely shaded the large statue decorating the center of the park. It was a nice and relaxed setting, and we sat in a circle and ate and discussed our observations from the market.
I was scheduled to meet Erica and Alex at 4, since I knew for certain I would be done by then, but our discussion ended much earlier than expected, so I still had several hours to go. After an unsuccessful attempt to find Victor Hugo’s house, our group went to check out the Georges Pompidou Centre, home of the modern art museum. It was one museum that I didn’t see when I was in Paris previously, so I was happy to tag along. The outside was pretty weird looking. I believe they were going for an inside-out look, so they sort of had large tubes that encased the escalators and almost scaffolding-like architecture. That was just a preview of what was to come. We got in free with our passes and went to check out the art. They had sections of “modern” art, from 1900-1960, then another level of “contemporary” art, from 1960 and beyond. I must say that modern art isn’t really my taste. It is just too abstract and also questionable. Is a painting of a single color art? Is a blank canvas art? These are questions that need answers. I felt like it was the sort of thing where everyone goes and pretends to understand the art, but no one really does. Some of it was just bizarre, although I did get to see some Picasso and a few other works that I recognized. There was other artwork that incorporated moving parts, sculpture, and even sounds. Overall, it was alright, but just not my favorite type of art. Maybe all of the deep meaning and profoundness is just beyond my peasant mind.
It was a quick visit, since it was soon the time I needed to meet Erica and Alex. Richard accompanied me to our meeting spot in Notre Dame. It took a little longer than expected due to a couple wrong turns, but we got there eventually. There was a horde of people at Notre Dame, but I found Erica soon enough and all was well. Richard went on his way, and then the three of us headed out. We went to the Père Lachaise cemetery, which is a very large, famous cemetery that holds the graves of tons of notable figures, among others. Although there is a map at the opening of the cemetery, we bought a paper one for a couple Euro to be able to follow the winding paths more accurately. We located our desired people, but we didn’t even get to see all the ones we circled before it closed; we spent a good hour walking around. We saw the graves of Chopin, famed composer; Jim Morrison, guitar player; Joseph Gay-Lussac, chemist (for Erica); authors La Fontaine and Molière; famed singer Édith Piaf; and author Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde’s tombstone is covered in lipstick kisses, which is some sort of tradition that I did not partake in. There were others, like Balzac and Proust, whom we did not get to, as they were ringing the bells for people to leave. The variety of the tombstones was also interesting, as they were all so different. We were also wondering how plots were allotted, as we could see some graves of people that had only died in 2009 or 2010. In fact, there was one site that still had all the dead flowers from the funeral just in the past week or so. It was an interesting trip and another thing that we had not yet done in Paris.
From the cemetery, we tried to go the Luxembourg gardens, but when we stepped out of the metro at our destination, it was raining. We thought of possibly going to a movie, so we decided to go back to my metro stop where there is a movie theater. We looked at the times for seeing Iron Man 2 in its Version Originale, but eventually decided against it. We got a quick snack at the nearby shop and then took it back to my hotel for some discussion. We were meeting up with my roommates at 9:30 to go out, so we still had a bit of time. We walked down to the Tour Montparnasse which towers above the neighborhood, and I explained to Erica the controversy surrounding the construction of the tower. Even though we got there perfectly in about 15 minutes by foot, we somehow got lost on the way back, running into completely unknown streets. Rather than trying to figure out the way, we backtracked slightly and took the metro back, having to transfer once to get back on the 4 to my hotel.
After that adventure, it was time to go out. The three other girls who I have been hanging out with had heard about a club with Spanish music (two of the three girls are Colombian) in St-Michel, so having no other ideas, we went there. Even though I’m not much of a club person, it was still fun. Also having not been in so many clubs in my life, I can’t say definitively how different it was from American clubs. There were some smaller side rooms with seats and a small room with the dance floor. It was pretty crowded, too, and I tried to figure out who most of the patrons were, but it was really hard to tell. I don’t know if they were from Paris, or mostly tourists, or what. I was ready to go pretty soon, since my feet were horribly tired, but I stuck it out, and the group headed home in plenty of time to catch the metro. I made a morning meeting point for Erica and Alex the next day, also. It had been a long day, and I was ready for sleep, but I couldn’t sleep in too much, as we still had a day’s worth of activities ahead.
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I wrote all those posts last night, and now it is Monday morning, and I am sitting on the train about to leave to Rennes. So now I can get us caught up to the present by finishing my entry for Sunday. One of my classmates, Melanie, has some extended family in France, and one family member had been nice enough to reserve some tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower. She had 3 for the top and 3 for the 2nd level, so my three classmates took the top, and Erica, Alex, and I bought her tickets for the 2nd level. This family member (I’m not sure of the relation, something like cousin’s husband’s grandfather’s girlfriend?) was also going to drive us to the tower in the morning, so we wouldn’t have to take the metro. So, she picked the four of us up at around 9:30, and off we went. It was interesting to get the car experience, and I made several observations. One, the driving system here is completely unintelligible. The traffic lights are on short poles on street corners, and there are larger and smaller lights, and I have no idea of the difference. I also could never figure out where we were supposed to be looking, and with all those crazy circular intersections, we often had to stop in middle, but I’m not sure why. There are of course pedestrians everywhere, and the lanes are hardly if at all defined. And even her relative, who is American but has lived in France for 25 years, had trouble navigating with all the crazy streets. She drove us by the Hôtel des Invalides just to get a quick peek, and it was of course magnificent. So much architecture here predates everything in America by hundreds of years, but I feel that the French hardly give it a second glance since it’s hardly novel to them, whereas we Americans are impressed by anything over 300 years old. I also wondered to myself how many cars in Europe are automatic. I get the impression that nearly all of them are manual. I also saw my first gas station yesterday, a BP actually, and it threw me off, since I realized that for all the cars I do see, I had never run across a gas station until that moment.
In any case, she dropped us off by the Eiffel Tower, and we were immediately accosted by the gypsy population asking if we spoke English. Their standard scheme is to go around, ask people if they speak English, and if so, hold up a piece of paper with some sob story written on it. Meanwhile, they will either pickpocket you as you’re distracted reading or just try to plead money off you. I just try to give a blank stare and move on. There were also tons of souvenir hawkers again, rattling chains of Eiffel Tower keychains and other wares. We waited for Erica and Alex under the tower in the direct center, and we must have been approached a dozen times by various souvenir people. They can be very aggressive and very annoying. But Erica and Alex soon found us, and off we went to get in the line for people with reservations. We went through a metal detector and then found ourselves in the large elevator in one of the pillars. They let everyone out at the 2nd level, and then those with tickets to the top could continue in a different elevator. We couldn’t see anything from the elevator, but once we got out, it was a great view. There were tons of people, but we went down a couple stairs to a lower level and got to walk all the way around. I must say that I’m a little orientationally challenged, and Erica had to correct me several times when I thought I saw an important landmark and was indeed off by practically 180 degrees. The view was great, and we could see for miles and miles. I could see tons of the sites I had previously visited, like Notre Dame, the Tour Montparnasse, the Arc de Triomphe, le Louvre, etc. We took pictures and stayed up for about half an hour before taking the elevator back down to ground, having arranged a meeting spot with my friends for later.
Once back down on Earth, we took some pictures from a little woodsy area and then from the Champ de Mars, the large park/grassy area that sits directly in front of the tower. From there, Erica wanted to go see the chapel Ste Chappelle, so off we went to do that. We stood in line for a bit and had to go through another metal detector, but then we were in. The chapel consists of a lower and upper level, and each is basically one room. It is notable for its stained glass, which was quite ornate. It was a good choice and another thing I had not yet seen.
After the chapel, it was about time for Erica and Alex to head to the train station to catch their train back to Munich. We got Erica a crêpe from a nearby stand and then headed to the metro. Of course the metro station was seemingly hidden among numerous flower stalls and it was pretty much impossible to find, but we did find it after several attempts and when I finally asked someone for help. By then, we just headed to their train station, the Gare de l’Est, and Alex and I both got sandwiches for lunch. I was running late, so I sadly said goodbye. It had been so great to see Erica, and I’m really glad that she came for the weekend. In fact, I hadn’t seen her since we left for winter break several months ago, as she had taken the semester off from UF. We also spoke a ton of German over the weekend- I could easily tell hers had improved while mine had definitely deteriorated with disuse. We discussed possibly taking a German class together next semester or perhaps even taking up beginning Italian, as she told me all about her recent travels there. She said she wished I could visit Munich with her, and I agreed. She also put forward the idea of doing an extended backpacking trip throughout Europe next summer. It will be her last chance to do something of that magnitude for quite some time, as she is (with all hope) attending medical school the year after. We thought with two other travelers (at least one male) we could do a large-scale tour of Europe, purchasing the global Eurail pass with unlimited travel in a set time and traveling only with the packs on our backs. Naturally I think it would be a great idea and would love to do it also, since I too will hopefully be busy with graduate school in the coming years. We also travel well together, and our language skills combined will be passable to get around without too much difficulty. So, funds allowing, I think it’s a great idea and would surely be educational.
So, leaving Erica and Alex behind, I took the metro to the Opera stop. On that day only, it was free to go visit the national opera, which is housed in an absolutely magnificent palace. I was running late and got there at 3:15, having set the meet time as 3. Upon exiting the metro directly in front of the palace, I didn’t see my friends, but I lounged on the steps to soak it in. After some minutes had passed, I figured I missed them, and having no way to know where they were, I decided to just do what I wanted. So, I got in the line to visit the opera and went in on my own (don’t worry, I was fine). The line took about 20 minutes to half an hour, but it was well worth it, and as of now the opera is possibly the greatest thing I’ve seen so far. It was very ornate, with marble steps and balconies, and sculptures and paintings everywhere. I went out on the balcony and could see the steps below where I had sat- then a couple asked me to take a picture of them, and I had them to do the same for me. We could also look at the auditorium itself; the seats were red velvet, and looking up, there was a massive chandelier hanging from the decorated ceiling, which Marc Chagall had painted. It was just great, and I was in awe. I wandered around taking pictures and looking at a couple side exhibits showing models of past stage design and paintings from various ballets. Overall, it was fantastic and I’m so glad I went. At the exit, I bought a little Opera notebook that will now become my new observation journal.
By this time, I was a little weary from trekking all over the city, but I still had yet to see the Luxembourg Gardens after several attempts. So, I decided to return to the hotel to get my book and then head to the garden. I ran into Vanessa on my way out of the hotel and found out that we just missed each other at the Opera, but no harm done. Off to the gardens I went, and they were beautiful. There were ample people taking advantage of the nice weather, reclining in chairs or relaxing by the fountains. It also seemed to be a popular jogging location, as I saw many runners, and there were also families taking strolls with little children in tow. It was all green and clean, and the Palais de Luxembourg near the entrance was also a nice sight. I found a spot on a bench and read some of my Camus book. Very French, n’est-ce pas? It was very relaxing and wonderful, but it soon grew a little chilly and I decided to head back via the PRC to check my email and catch up with my online affairs, since my internet at the hotel leaves much to be desired.
Many establishments close on Sunday, but I got a little something to eat near my hotel and took it back to my room to take the night off. The hotel is nice, but there’s just one thing that drives me crazy, and that’s my key. It’s a standard card that you swipe in the slot, but it is completely unreliable. I can be outside my door trying for literally 10 minutes before it finally decides to work. Very rarely it will work after 4 or 5 tries, but often it takes upwards of 50. I could try to get a new key, but I know others have had the same problems without much support from the management, so I am just living with it. In any case, I finally managed to unlock my door, and I ate my dinner and worked on my blog. By that time, it was already midnight, so it was time to get ready for bed. We had to meet at 7:45 in the lobby this morning to head out to Rennes, so we didn’t have much time to sleep in.
Now it is about an hour into the train ride, and I have successfully caught you up on all my activities. We have two busy days in Rennes before a more relaxed Wednesday back in Paris, when Vanessa and I plan to visit a couple museums and go to a nice dinner. Thursday is our day of death with activities spanning all day and evening, and then Friday is already the goodbye dinner and our final night here. I have loved this whole trip, but I am also looking forward to the comfort of home and seeing more familiar things. But needless to say, I am going to take advantage of my final days here to round out a great little program.
Not sure when this entry will get posted, so it might feel off, but I wish everyone back home a good week!
Jenna
On Friday, we had had tentative plans to visit a middle school to start looking at the language of the youth, but unfortunately the tentativeness did not go in our favor, and for whatever reason, the trip was canceled. Luckily, we still have another school visit planned for next week, so we will not completely miss out. Instead of going out to the school, we met at the PRC to watch a film. It was called Bienvenue Chez Les Ch’tis, and it actually on TV as we speak. The movie is about a French man from the south of France who goes to live in the North for a new job, and we see his trials and tribulations as he adjusts to small town life. Much of the movie also focuses on the particularities of the way the French speak in that area; there are numerous misunderstandings and language-related incidents. Their style of speaking includes lots of ‘ch’ (pronounced sh) sounds where normal French would just have ‘s’. So, les Ch’tis would say “chest cha” for the regular expression “c’est ça”. There were plenty of other differences as well, especially in pronunciation, but there were also differences in vocabulary and a little bit in morphology/syntax. So, it was interesting to look at from a linguistic perspective, and we had a good discussion following the film. We watched the movie with French subtitles, which I think is the best way to go. If you have them in English, you end up just reading, but without any subtitles, you can get completely lost. Unfortunately, I’m not yet at that level where I can watch French movies and understand everything. And having non-standard speech as in this movie would just add to the confusion. It was an enjoyable film, though, and quite funny.
After the film, I worked in the PRC library on some homework and wrote the previous blog entry. By the time I was done, I had just enough time to grab a quick quiche-like lunch at the nearby sandwicherie which I have visited at least a couple times on the trip. From there, I headed out with my classmates to the next group activity, a group discussion at a café.
The PRC had suggested the particular location because they seemed to feel it was like a youth hangout of some kind. That might be true, but it was also a very unique experience. It was not a normal café with tables inside and out, nor did it even have a menu or waiters. It was actually a manga café, where people can go and read and buy manga (Japanese comic books/graphic novels, essentially), hang out on couches, use the wifi, and play video games. They had shelves of manga lining the store, numerous modern-looking couches and bean bag chairs, and Japanese art on the walls. You could read as much manga as you could want and also drink as much soda or hot beverages as you wanted, and you paid by the hour. We didn’t have to pay, as it was on the PRC, and it was an interesting setting for our discussion, even though I’m not huge into manga. And sure enough, there were numerous young people patronizing the establishment, from about 12 years old up to others in their 20s. We had a group discussion about the activities from the day before and talked about our various observations, especially concerning the language of younger people. Before the trip, we had been required to see two films, so we discussed those as well.
After the café, we were free for the day. I had plans to meet up with my friend Erica at my hotel, but I still had some time to kill, so I accompanied my friends to a nearby church, the Église Saint Étienne. Usually, these type of churches all look the same to me, and this was not really an exception. Of course, it was big and majestic and ornamental and beautiful, but to me, there was nothing particularly striking about it. I think I’m just all cathedraled out. There are so many in Europe- although I remember very particularly Kaiser Wilhelms Gedächtnis Kirche in Germany (although even right now I’m struggling to remember what city it was in- have to check my blog!). After the cathedral, we wandered around a little bit, but by then I needed to catch the metro back to the hotel to meet Erica.
We found each other successfully, and she and her friend Alex, who was traveling with her, came up to my room for a few minutes to chat and decided what to do. They had already been in Paris for a night and had spent the day wandering the city, so we decided to head out to St-Michel to get dinner. We found a reasonable place which ended up turning out nicely. It was quiet and we were able to talk and catch up. She told me all about her current program in Munich, and we reminisced about all of our old European travels and told Alex some of the best (and most horrific) stories. Our food was good too- I even had the classic escargot. My main course was salmon and pasta and I had some cheese for dessert. It was quite obviously not an haute cuisine, white tablecloth French restaurant experience, but it was good nonetheless.
After dinner we wandered about the area, visiting some souvenir shops and going into (and quickly exiting) a couple nightclub-ish type places, which were very empty and/or weird. We did quite a bit of walking, ending up passing by the Panthéon and Luxembourg Gardens, among other things. Eventually, we grew tired and parted ways to our respective hotels (theirs was an apparently very sketchy hostel) for the night, agreeing to meet the following day at Notre Dame at 4.
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The next day was Saturday. Although some PRC programs had the whole weekend off, we did not. We met in the lobby at 10 to head out to another market, the Marché d’Aligre, which is fairly well known. My professor actually invited Erica and Alex to come along, but they politely declined as not to intrude. I realized later though that their hostel was pretty much right next to the market, so they could easily have seen it on their own. Alas. This market was much larger than the other and much more diverse. There was an inside portion with numerous stalls, mostly food related, and then other stalls lined the streets outside. There were tons of fruit and vegetable vendors selling all types of things, but then there was also an area where people were selling clothes, new and used, as well as more garage-sale type items. There were also tons of people, and the whole scene was very lively and busy. Merchants shouted out prices trying to get attention for their products, and others offered samples of the fruit to lure people in. It was a little hard to tell where most of the fruit came from; I’m guessing a good bit of it was local, but people also advertised New Zealand kiwis, Hawaiian pineapples, and even Florida grapefruit. There was tons of opportunity for observation, and I got some good notes. I bought 5 kiwis for 2 Euro as well as 1 kilo of strawberries for another 2 Euro, as we were supposed to get lunch for our picnic later. I did not realize just how many strawberries 1 kg is- it was a ton and I still had some left over later even after sharing them with everyone. My fingers turned bright red from the juice, but they were nice and sweet.
After meeting at the meeting point after about an hour of observation, we walked over to the picnic area, seeing the Bastille and the new national opera house on the way. We had our picnic in the Place des Vosges, which is a gorgeous square little park. It has a very symmetrical feel, as it is surrounded by identical beautiful architecture on all sides. The house of Victor Hugo is right next door (somewhere?), but we never found it, since everything looked the same! The park was decently populated, with families walking around and couples sprawled on the grass. The trees were in bloom and nicely shaded the large statue decorating the center of the park. It was a nice and relaxed setting, and we sat in a circle and ate and discussed our observations from the market.
I was scheduled to meet Erica and Alex at 4, since I knew for certain I would be done by then, but our discussion ended much earlier than expected, so I still had several hours to go. After an unsuccessful attempt to find Victor Hugo’s house, our group went to check out the Georges Pompidou Centre, home of the modern art museum. It was one museum that I didn’t see when I was in Paris previously, so I was happy to tag along. The outside was pretty weird looking. I believe they were going for an inside-out look, so they sort of had large tubes that encased the escalators and almost scaffolding-like architecture. That was just a preview of what was to come. We got in free with our passes and went to check out the art. They had sections of “modern” art, from 1900-1960, then another level of “contemporary” art, from 1960 and beyond. I must say that modern art isn’t really my taste. It is just too abstract and also questionable. Is a painting of a single color art? Is a blank canvas art? These are questions that need answers. I felt like it was the sort of thing where everyone goes and pretends to understand the art, but no one really does. Some of it was just bizarre, although I did get to see some Picasso and a few other works that I recognized. There was other artwork that incorporated moving parts, sculpture, and even sounds. Overall, it was alright, but just not my favorite type of art. Maybe all of the deep meaning and profoundness is just beyond my peasant mind.
It was a quick visit, since it was soon the time I needed to meet Erica and Alex. Richard accompanied me to our meeting spot in Notre Dame. It took a little longer than expected due to a couple wrong turns, but we got there eventually. There was a horde of people at Notre Dame, but I found Erica soon enough and all was well. Richard went on his way, and then the three of us headed out. We went to the Père Lachaise cemetery, which is a very large, famous cemetery that holds the graves of tons of notable figures, among others. Although there is a map at the opening of the cemetery, we bought a paper one for a couple Euro to be able to follow the winding paths more accurately. We located our desired people, but we didn’t even get to see all the ones we circled before it closed; we spent a good hour walking around. We saw the graves of Chopin, famed composer; Jim Morrison, guitar player; Joseph Gay-Lussac, chemist (for Erica); authors La Fontaine and Molière; famed singer Édith Piaf; and author Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde’s tombstone is covered in lipstick kisses, which is some sort of tradition that I did not partake in. There were others, like Balzac and Proust, whom we did not get to, as they were ringing the bells for people to leave. The variety of the tombstones was also interesting, as they were all so different. We were also wondering how plots were allotted, as we could see some graves of people that had only died in 2009 or 2010. In fact, there was one site that still had all the dead flowers from the funeral just in the past week or so. It was an interesting trip and another thing that we had not yet done in Paris.
From the cemetery, we tried to go the Luxembourg gardens, but when we stepped out of the metro at our destination, it was raining. We thought of possibly going to a movie, so we decided to go back to my metro stop where there is a movie theater. We looked at the times for seeing Iron Man 2 in its Version Originale, but eventually decided against it. We got a quick snack at the nearby shop and then took it back to my hotel for some discussion. We were meeting up with my roommates at 9:30 to go out, so we still had a bit of time. We walked down to the Tour Montparnasse which towers above the neighborhood, and I explained to Erica the controversy surrounding the construction of the tower. Even though we got there perfectly in about 15 minutes by foot, we somehow got lost on the way back, running into completely unknown streets. Rather than trying to figure out the way, we backtracked slightly and took the metro back, having to transfer once to get back on the 4 to my hotel.
After that adventure, it was time to go out. The three other girls who I have been hanging out with had heard about a club with Spanish music (two of the three girls are Colombian) in St-Michel, so having no other ideas, we went there. Even though I’m not much of a club person, it was still fun. Also having not been in so many clubs in my life, I can’t say definitively how different it was from American clubs. There were some smaller side rooms with seats and a small room with the dance floor. It was pretty crowded, too, and I tried to figure out who most of the patrons were, but it was really hard to tell. I don’t know if they were from Paris, or mostly tourists, or what. I was ready to go pretty soon, since my feet were horribly tired, but I stuck it out, and the group headed home in plenty of time to catch the metro. I made a morning meeting point for Erica and Alex the next day, also. It had been a long day, and I was ready for sleep, but I couldn’t sleep in too much, as we still had a day’s worth of activities ahead.
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I wrote all those posts last night, and now it is Monday morning, and I am sitting on the train about to leave to Rennes. So now I can get us caught up to the present by finishing my entry for Sunday. One of my classmates, Melanie, has some extended family in France, and one family member had been nice enough to reserve some tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower. She had 3 for the top and 3 for the 2nd level, so my three classmates took the top, and Erica, Alex, and I bought her tickets for the 2nd level. This family member (I’m not sure of the relation, something like cousin’s husband’s grandfather’s girlfriend?) was also going to drive us to the tower in the morning, so we wouldn’t have to take the metro. So, she picked the four of us up at around 9:30, and off we went. It was interesting to get the car experience, and I made several observations. One, the driving system here is completely unintelligible. The traffic lights are on short poles on street corners, and there are larger and smaller lights, and I have no idea of the difference. I also could never figure out where we were supposed to be looking, and with all those crazy circular intersections, we often had to stop in middle, but I’m not sure why. There are of course pedestrians everywhere, and the lanes are hardly if at all defined. And even her relative, who is American but has lived in France for 25 years, had trouble navigating with all the crazy streets. She drove us by the Hôtel des Invalides just to get a quick peek, and it was of course magnificent. So much architecture here predates everything in America by hundreds of years, but I feel that the French hardly give it a second glance since it’s hardly novel to them, whereas we Americans are impressed by anything over 300 years old. I also wondered to myself how many cars in Europe are automatic. I get the impression that nearly all of them are manual. I also saw my first gas station yesterday, a BP actually, and it threw me off, since I realized that for all the cars I do see, I had never run across a gas station until that moment.
In any case, she dropped us off by the Eiffel Tower, and we were immediately accosted by the gypsy population asking if we spoke English. Their standard scheme is to go around, ask people if they speak English, and if so, hold up a piece of paper with some sob story written on it. Meanwhile, they will either pickpocket you as you’re distracted reading or just try to plead money off you. I just try to give a blank stare and move on. There were also tons of souvenir hawkers again, rattling chains of Eiffel Tower keychains and other wares. We waited for Erica and Alex under the tower in the direct center, and we must have been approached a dozen times by various souvenir people. They can be very aggressive and very annoying. But Erica and Alex soon found us, and off we went to get in the line for people with reservations. We went through a metal detector and then found ourselves in the large elevator in one of the pillars. They let everyone out at the 2nd level, and then those with tickets to the top could continue in a different elevator. We couldn’t see anything from the elevator, but once we got out, it was a great view. There were tons of people, but we went down a couple stairs to a lower level and got to walk all the way around. I must say that I’m a little orientationally challenged, and Erica had to correct me several times when I thought I saw an important landmark and was indeed off by practically 180 degrees. The view was great, and we could see for miles and miles. I could see tons of the sites I had previously visited, like Notre Dame, the Tour Montparnasse, the Arc de Triomphe, le Louvre, etc. We took pictures and stayed up for about half an hour before taking the elevator back down to ground, having arranged a meeting spot with my friends for later.
Once back down on Earth, we took some pictures from a little woodsy area and then from the Champ de Mars, the large park/grassy area that sits directly in front of the tower. From there, Erica wanted to go see the chapel Ste Chappelle, so off we went to do that. We stood in line for a bit and had to go through another metal detector, but then we were in. The chapel consists of a lower and upper level, and each is basically one room. It is notable for its stained glass, which was quite ornate. It was a good choice and another thing I had not yet seen.
After the chapel, it was about time for Erica and Alex to head to the train station to catch their train back to Munich. We got Erica a crêpe from a nearby stand and then headed to the metro. Of course the metro station was seemingly hidden among numerous flower stalls and it was pretty much impossible to find, but we did find it after several attempts and when I finally asked someone for help. By then, we just headed to their train station, the Gare de l’Est, and Alex and I both got sandwiches for lunch. I was running late, so I sadly said goodbye. It had been so great to see Erica, and I’m really glad that she came for the weekend. In fact, I hadn’t seen her since we left for winter break several months ago, as she had taken the semester off from UF. We also spoke a ton of German over the weekend- I could easily tell hers had improved while mine had definitely deteriorated with disuse. We discussed possibly taking a German class together next semester or perhaps even taking up beginning Italian, as she told me all about her recent travels there. She said she wished I could visit Munich with her, and I agreed. She also put forward the idea of doing an extended backpacking trip throughout Europe next summer. It will be her last chance to do something of that magnitude for quite some time, as she is (with all hope) attending medical school the year after. We thought with two other travelers (at least one male) we could do a large-scale tour of Europe, purchasing the global Eurail pass with unlimited travel in a set time and traveling only with the packs on our backs. Naturally I think it would be a great idea and would love to do it also, since I too will hopefully be busy with graduate school in the coming years. We also travel well together, and our language skills combined will be passable to get around without too much difficulty. So, funds allowing, I think it’s a great idea and would surely be educational.
So, leaving Erica and Alex behind, I took the metro to the Opera stop. On that day only, it was free to go visit the national opera, which is housed in an absolutely magnificent palace. I was running late and got there at 3:15, having set the meet time as 3. Upon exiting the metro directly in front of the palace, I didn’t see my friends, but I lounged on the steps to soak it in. After some minutes had passed, I figured I missed them, and having no way to know where they were, I decided to just do what I wanted. So, I got in the line to visit the opera and went in on my own (don’t worry, I was fine). The line took about 20 minutes to half an hour, but it was well worth it, and as of now the opera is possibly the greatest thing I’ve seen so far. It was very ornate, with marble steps and balconies, and sculptures and paintings everywhere. I went out on the balcony and could see the steps below where I had sat- then a couple asked me to take a picture of them, and I had them to do the same for me. We could also look at the auditorium itself; the seats were red velvet, and looking up, there was a massive chandelier hanging from the decorated ceiling, which Marc Chagall had painted. It was just great, and I was in awe. I wandered around taking pictures and looking at a couple side exhibits showing models of past stage design and paintings from various ballets. Overall, it was fantastic and I’m so glad I went. At the exit, I bought a little Opera notebook that will now become my new observation journal.
By this time, I was a little weary from trekking all over the city, but I still had yet to see the Luxembourg Gardens after several attempts. So, I decided to return to the hotel to get my book and then head to the garden. I ran into Vanessa on my way out of the hotel and found out that we just missed each other at the Opera, but no harm done. Off to the gardens I went, and they were beautiful. There were ample people taking advantage of the nice weather, reclining in chairs or relaxing by the fountains. It also seemed to be a popular jogging location, as I saw many runners, and there were also families taking strolls with little children in tow. It was all green and clean, and the Palais de Luxembourg near the entrance was also a nice sight. I found a spot on a bench and read some of my Camus book. Very French, n’est-ce pas? It was very relaxing and wonderful, but it soon grew a little chilly and I decided to head back via the PRC to check my email and catch up with my online affairs, since my internet at the hotel leaves much to be desired.
Many establishments close on Sunday, but I got a little something to eat near my hotel and took it back to my room to take the night off. The hotel is nice, but there’s just one thing that drives me crazy, and that’s my key. It’s a standard card that you swipe in the slot, but it is completely unreliable. I can be outside my door trying for literally 10 minutes before it finally decides to work. Very rarely it will work after 4 or 5 tries, but often it takes upwards of 50. I could try to get a new key, but I know others have had the same problems without much support from the management, so I am just living with it. In any case, I finally managed to unlock my door, and I ate my dinner and worked on my blog. By that time, it was already midnight, so it was time to get ready for bed. We had to meet at 7:45 in the lobby this morning to head out to Rennes, so we didn’t have much time to sleep in.
Now it is about an hour into the train ride, and I have successfully caught you up on all my activities. We have two busy days in Rennes before a more relaxed Wednesday back in Paris, when Vanessa and I plan to visit a couple museums and go to a nice dinner. Thursday is our day of death with activities spanning all day and evening, and then Friday is already the goodbye dinner and our final night here. I have loved this whole trip, but I am also looking forward to the comfort of home and seeing more familiar things. But needless to say, I am going to take advantage of my final days here to round out a great little program.
Not sure when this entry will get posted, so it might feel off, but I wish everyone back home a good week!
Jenna
Sunday, May 9, 2010
I am alive!
Just a quick post to let you know that I am alive and well. I had a fantastic weekend that I will soon be posting about, but I have been too busy to really sit down and write. I also seem to no longer have internet at the hotel, so contacting me is a little bit difficult. Right now I'm typing on a really wacky French keyboard at the PRC, and I keep having to correct typos from how the keys are arranged.
We travel to Rennes tomorrow for two days, and I plan on writing some blog entries on the way. Catch up with you in a few days!
We travel to Rennes tomorrow for two days, and I plan on writing some blog entries on the way. Catch up with you in a few days!
Friday, May 7, 2010
Jeudi
I got home so late last night that I didn't even have time to write my blog entry for the day. I have a few hours' break at the moment, so I am using the time to catch up on my blog and on my homework.
We met in the hotel lobby at around 9:30 in the morning to hear about the day's activities. Our observation activity of the day was going to a neighborhood market that has numerous outdoor stalls selling various things: fruit, vegetables, fish, cheese, non-food products, etc. It wasn't an extremely large market, but I think it was fairly typical. The stores lined the street, and we were supposed to observe various elements. For example, we listened to how the storekeepers announced their products, how they described them and tried to entice buyers, and then how the negotiation and transaction took place. We could also still look at forms of address and opening and closing greetings.
We had about an hour to walk around and observe, so we split into small groups and off we went. I just did a couple walkthroughs to get familiar with the space, and then I tried to discretely observe. That's really the hard part, because sometimes it's hard to understand what people say without looking directly at them. I tried to be a subtle observer without intruding too much or drawing too much attention. Still, I was able to make a number of observations. I heard the shopkeeper at the fromagerie, for example, talking about the fine Camemberts he had that day. Other shopkeepers sang little songs to draw in attention and were quite lively. It was a pretty interesting experiment overall. I also spent a few minutes in a bookstore and ended up buying another Camus book in French, The Myth of Sisyphus. I doubt I'll have time to really get into it here, but I will definitely be reading it on the plane home. I am still feeling a little bit awkward in customer/salesperson situations, but I think I am getting better.
Another minorly interesting incident was when a young guy came up to me on the street. I missed the first few words of what he said, but overall I got the gist, and he was just looking for a certain shop in the area. Who am I to give directions in Paris, but coincidentally I had just seen the shop a few minutes before, and I was able to point him in the right direction. It was a small victory, but nice nonetheless.
Soon enough, the hour had passed, and we met up again with the group. We still had about 45 minutes before the next activity, so we had a little time to kill. We were headed back to the PRC for a picnic and discussion, but we spent the intermediate time by walking through the Montparnasse cemetery which was just a few minutes' walk away. There are tons of famous people buried there, but of course there was only time to see a few. I saw, for example, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as Pierre Larousse, who is the famous for the French dictionary porting his name. The cemetery differed from other ones I have seen. The tombs and markers will of all different sizes and heights. It was very heterogeneous and actually quite pretty. There were some graves that towered over me and others that were more subtly laid in the ground, and the cobblestones and trees made for a peaceful ambiance.
Right near the PRC, I got some kind of goat cheese and spinach quiche for lunch, and then we all ate together in the PRC courtyard. We then had discussion time and a lecture with our professor for an hour and a bit. We had a couple hours free in the afternoon, but we just returned to the hotel, as we have been so on the go that we have not been getting enough sleep. We pretty much all just took a nap for a couple hours until it was time for our guest lecturer, Françoise Gadet, at the PRC. I had actually seen her before, as she had given a talk at UF during the spring semester. She is a very prominent sociolinguist at the university Paris X. Her talk was very interesting, and she talked a lot about the data available that can analyse the French of the past as well as traits that characterize the French of today. We had read an article by her as part of our course preparation, and in fact, my Sociolinguistics of French course next semester uses the book that she wrote. So, it was really nice to be able to get some interaction with someone who has really done a lot for the field. After the lecture, we were free for the day.
My friends and I then went down to the St-Michel area for dinner. We ate in a small, inexpensive restaurant. It was definitely touristy but not so bad. Often in France, restaurants will have what is called a 'formule' for a certain price, where you have a combination of appetizer, main dish, and dessert (or all three) for a set price, and you can choose different options in all the categories. So, for example, last night I had a crêpe au fromage to start, then spaghetti bolognese, then mousse au chocolat for dessert. It was reasonably good, and actually it kind of tied into our activity we had had earlier, as the manager was persuading us to come in before we had made our decision to eat there.
After dinner, we walked around the area a little bit, playing the tourist and going into a few souvenir shops. By then it was dark and we could go off to what we had really been planning: seeing the Eiffel Tower at night. After a bit of a mix-up with the RER train, we decided just to take the metro over to the area, even though it was a little longer. Our final metro stop was one of the biggest I've ever seen- big enough to have moving sidewalks to take you from one end to the other. It must be newer, as most metro stops are in not great condition.
We made our way over to the Eiffel Tower, dodging the numerous souvenir hawkers, and when we did see it, it really was amazing. It was all lit up, and just so immense. The architecture really is incredible. We got tons of pictures and walked around underneath. We could also see the Tour Montparnasse in our neighborhood. It really sticks out as the only skyscraper for miles, and I can see why the Parisians would be upset about its construction. Unfortunately the grass on the Champ de Mars was closed, so we couldn't sit around there. Instead, we went the other direction across a bridge, where we got a more distant view and more pictures. We then waited around about 15 minutes until midnight, when the tower would light up and twinkle. It was quite a sight, and we just absorbed the atmosphere. At that point, we were ready to head home, so we took the metro back to our normal stop and walked back to the hotel. The days go by so fast, and my trip is practically half over! It's hard to believe. Paris is an amazing city, and I don't think you could ever be bored here.
Tonight I meet up with my friend Erica, who's visiting from Munich, and then we will spend the weekend together seeing more of the city. I can't wait!
Jenna
We met in the hotel lobby at around 9:30 in the morning to hear about the day's activities. Our observation activity of the day was going to a neighborhood market that has numerous outdoor stalls selling various things: fruit, vegetables, fish, cheese, non-food products, etc. It wasn't an extremely large market, but I think it was fairly typical. The stores lined the street, and we were supposed to observe various elements. For example, we listened to how the storekeepers announced their products, how they described them and tried to entice buyers, and then how the negotiation and transaction took place. We could also still look at forms of address and opening and closing greetings.
We had about an hour to walk around and observe, so we split into small groups and off we went. I just did a couple walkthroughs to get familiar with the space, and then I tried to discretely observe. That's really the hard part, because sometimes it's hard to understand what people say without looking directly at them. I tried to be a subtle observer without intruding too much or drawing too much attention. Still, I was able to make a number of observations. I heard the shopkeeper at the fromagerie, for example, talking about the fine Camemberts he had that day. Other shopkeepers sang little songs to draw in attention and were quite lively. It was a pretty interesting experiment overall. I also spent a few minutes in a bookstore and ended up buying another Camus book in French, The Myth of Sisyphus. I doubt I'll have time to really get into it here, but I will definitely be reading it on the plane home. I am still feeling a little bit awkward in customer/salesperson situations, but I think I am getting better.
Another minorly interesting incident was when a young guy came up to me on the street. I missed the first few words of what he said, but overall I got the gist, and he was just looking for a certain shop in the area. Who am I to give directions in Paris, but coincidentally I had just seen the shop a few minutes before, and I was able to point him in the right direction. It was a small victory, but nice nonetheless.
Soon enough, the hour had passed, and we met up again with the group. We still had about 45 minutes before the next activity, so we had a little time to kill. We were headed back to the PRC for a picnic and discussion, but we spent the intermediate time by walking through the Montparnasse cemetery which was just a few minutes' walk away. There are tons of famous people buried there, but of course there was only time to see a few. I saw, for example, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as Pierre Larousse, who is the famous for the French dictionary porting his name. The cemetery differed from other ones I have seen. The tombs and markers will of all different sizes and heights. It was very heterogeneous and actually quite pretty. There were some graves that towered over me and others that were more subtly laid in the ground, and the cobblestones and trees made for a peaceful ambiance.
Right near the PRC, I got some kind of goat cheese and spinach quiche for lunch, and then we all ate together in the PRC courtyard. We then had discussion time and a lecture with our professor for an hour and a bit. We had a couple hours free in the afternoon, but we just returned to the hotel, as we have been so on the go that we have not been getting enough sleep. We pretty much all just took a nap for a couple hours until it was time for our guest lecturer, Françoise Gadet, at the PRC. I had actually seen her before, as she had given a talk at UF during the spring semester. She is a very prominent sociolinguist at the university Paris X. Her talk was very interesting, and she talked a lot about the data available that can analyse the French of the past as well as traits that characterize the French of today. We had read an article by her as part of our course preparation, and in fact, my Sociolinguistics of French course next semester uses the book that she wrote. So, it was really nice to be able to get some interaction with someone who has really done a lot for the field. After the lecture, we were free for the day.
My friends and I then went down to the St-Michel area for dinner. We ate in a small, inexpensive restaurant. It was definitely touristy but not so bad. Often in France, restaurants will have what is called a 'formule' for a certain price, where you have a combination of appetizer, main dish, and dessert (or all three) for a set price, and you can choose different options in all the categories. So, for example, last night I had a crêpe au fromage to start, then spaghetti bolognese, then mousse au chocolat for dessert. It was reasonably good, and actually it kind of tied into our activity we had had earlier, as the manager was persuading us to come in before we had made our decision to eat there.
After dinner, we walked around the area a little bit, playing the tourist and going into a few souvenir shops. By then it was dark and we could go off to what we had really been planning: seeing the Eiffel Tower at night. After a bit of a mix-up with the RER train, we decided just to take the metro over to the area, even though it was a little longer. Our final metro stop was one of the biggest I've ever seen- big enough to have moving sidewalks to take you from one end to the other. It must be newer, as most metro stops are in not great condition.
We made our way over to the Eiffel Tower, dodging the numerous souvenir hawkers, and when we did see it, it really was amazing. It was all lit up, and just so immense. The architecture really is incredible. We got tons of pictures and walked around underneath. We could also see the Tour Montparnasse in our neighborhood. It really sticks out as the only skyscraper for miles, and I can see why the Parisians would be upset about its construction. Unfortunately the grass on the Champ de Mars was closed, so we couldn't sit around there. Instead, we went the other direction across a bridge, where we got a more distant view and more pictures. We then waited around about 15 minutes until midnight, when the tower would light up and twinkle. It was quite a sight, and we just absorbed the atmosphere. At that point, we were ready to head home, so we took the metro back to our normal stop and walked back to the hotel. The days go by so fast, and my trip is practically half over! It's hard to believe. Paris is an amazing city, and I don't think you could ever be bored here.
Tonight I meet up with my friend Erica, who's visiting from Munich, and then we will spend the weekend together seeing more of the city. I can't wait!
Jenna
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Mercredi
Don't I begin every post by saying how busy the day was? Well, today was no exception. We left the hotel at 9 to go to our first guest lecture. Thinking that it would be faster, we took the bus, and we had to make one change in the middle (would have been 3 changes on the metro). The bus was not much fun- it was very crowded, and we didn't save any time. Nonetheless, we disembarked near the location and found our way to the cafe where our speaker was meeting us. She then led us to the Nouvelle Sorbonne, which is a university and a Sorbonne, but not the classic Sorbonne that you might be thinking of. Our professor had already told us that French universities were nowhere near as impressive looking as American ones, and she was right. The main building was hardly distinguished looking, and the inside wasn't that impressive. It really pales in comparison to the huge, beautiful campuses found in the US. However, the speaker also explained that French universities were suffering- she really did not make me want to go to a French university! However, tuition is free for the students, and apparently university food and lodging are very cheap also. We met in a small room which was perhaps some kind of department lounge- it was a bit hard to tell.
The lecture itself was very interesting. The speaker, a French university professor in linguistics, spoke about her latest project of compiling a corpus of the French spoken in Paris today, from all different areas. Interestingly, such a project has never been undertaken in Paris. There are very famous corpora from Montreal, though, for example, which my professor has worked heavily on, as well as in a few other smaller French cities. Thus, the scope of the project is large and they have large hopes with it. The speaker talked about the collection of the data, like the questions posed to the participants and how they were asked, how the participants were found, the transcription process, etc. All of the data is also online, so we can go and listen to everything and read the transcriptions ourselves. It was really very interesting. They have not done too much data analysis yet, as they are still in the process of collecting interviews, but it will be interesting to see what can be found from it. They will be looking at, of course, language variation, but they will also be able to look at social identity and other issues because of the type of questions asked.
After the lecture, we were free for a couple hours for lunch. We walked around the area a little bit- it was filled with students. We had lunch at a little Cretan restaurant and got gyros to go. It reminded me of all the times I got Döner in Germany. We walked from there and saw the Pantheon, which is a really brilliant piece of architecture. We didn't go outside, but instead kept walking through the busy streets until we eventually arrived at the former Sorbonne, which was much nicer looking on the outside. It was much more Parisian- the stone walls, statues, etc. But once again, we didn't have a chance to go inside, as we needed to keep walking to meet up for our next activity.
We met in front of the church in St-Germain-des-Prés, where we were given instructions for our observation activity. We wanted to look at variation in negation in French, as well as variation in pronouns. As for negation, grammatical French has two parts: "ne" in front of the verb and "pas" after. However, in oral French, the "ne" is very often dropped. The pronoun for the 2nd person plural "we" is also varied. The "nous" form is the actual "we" form, but people popularly use the 3rd person singular "on", which corresponds to the English "one" (as in, one goes to church on Sunday), but is very commonly used to mean we or a group. So, we were investigating those two particular traits in particular, just by walking around the neighborhood and listening in where we could. Our group found an indoor shopping mall (away from the cold!) and spent time there. As was to be expected, we did find numerous instances of the ne erasement and the use of 'on' for nous.
About an hour later, we met on the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge crossing the Seine, to discuss our findings. It was unbelievably windy, so we didn't stay too long. From the bridge, we could see a lot of great structures, including Ile de la Cité, which is the very small island in the Seine which was essentially the very beginnings of Paris. Along the bridge fence, there were also tons of little locks that people had locked to the chains. Upon inquiry, we found out that it's a little romantic tradition. Couples will buy a lock, lock it to the fence, and then throw the key into the river to symbolize their neverending love. Awww.
From there, we were free for the day. I went with my professor and Richard, the older man of the group, to a little cafe in the area. I enjoyed the occasion and got to practice more French, and we had nice, leisurely conversation. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and planned to meet up later for dinner. On the way, Richard and I stopped in the grocery store near our hotel, which had a surprisingly large array of products. It was no Publix, but it was still very comprehensive- a person could really do all their basic grocery shopping there, instead of going to a bunch of little stores, which is more the French way. They had an especially impressive cheese selection, which I may have to investigate more before my trip home.
We took a couple hours back at the hotel to rest, and then Richard, my professor, and I all went back out to dinner. We went to a restaurant that my professor had visited in previous trips in Paris, a restaurant in the Belgian model that specializes in moules frites. Moules frites are mussels (steamed? boiled? not sure) prepared in varying ways, served with french fries. I don't think I ever had a meal specifically of mussels before, but I know I had tried them here and there. Mine were called Moules Léon, with Léon just being the name of the restaurant. It was some kind of buttery, white-wine sauce, and it was all good. Once again, we had a nice conversation, talking about various things like the French courses at UF and amusing experiences in foreign countries. After dinner, we took a brief walk around Notre Dame and the surrounding streets before finding (eventually) the nearest metro and making our way back to the hotel, where I now sit.
Overall, I am really enjoying my time here. Paris has so much to offer, and I feel I'm barely scraping the top of it. I'm getting along decently with my French, although there's always room for improvement, and I'm getting a feel for the French culture. Being here has also made me feel the need to live in a francophone environment, say either here or in Québec, for a more extended period of time. It's only then I think that I will approach my desired level of fluency. So, I think in my graduate school plans I should look for schools that either are already in francophone environments or have extended programs offered abroad. For example, my professor was telling me about exchange programs that UF has for either a semester or a full year in Rennes, where we happen to be going next Monday and Tuesday. I suppose the backup plan would just be to marry either un Québécois or un Français!
It's midnight and I still have homework to do, so bonsoir and good night!
The lecture itself was very interesting. The speaker, a French university professor in linguistics, spoke about her latest project of compiling a corpus of the French spoken in Paris today, from all different areas. Interestingly, such a project has never been undertaken in Paris. There are very famous corpora from Montreal, though, for example, which my professor has worked heavily on, as well as in a few other smaller French cities. Thus, the scope of the project is large and they have large hopes with it. The speaker talked about the collection of the data, like the questions posed to the participants and how they were asked, how the participants were found, the transcription process, etc. All of the data is also online, so we can go and listen to everything and read the transcriptions ourselves. It was really very interesting. They have not done too much data analysis yet, as they are still in the process of collecting interviews, but it will be interesting to see what can be found from it. They will be looking at, of course, language variation, but they will also be able to look at social identity and other issues because of the type of questions asked.
After the lecture, we were free for a couple hours for lunch. We walked around the area a little bit- it was filled with students. We had lunch at a little Cretan restaurant and got gyros to go. It reminded me of all the times I got Döner in Germany. We walked from there and saw the Pantheon, which is a really brilliant piece of architecture. We didn't go outside, but instead kept walking through the busy streets until we eventually arrived at the former Sorbonne, which was much nicer looking on the outside. It was much more Parisian- the stone walls, statues, etc. But once again, we didn't have a chance to go inside, as we needed to keep walking to meet up for our next activity.
We met in front of the church in St-Germain-des-Prés, where we were given instructions for our observation activity. We wanted to look at variation in negation in French, as well as variation in pronouns. As for negation, grammatical French has two parts: "ne" in front of the verb and "pas" after. However, in oral French, the "ne" is very often dropped. The pronoun for the 2nd person plural "we" is also varied. The "nous" form is the actual "we" form, but people popularly use the 3rd person singular "on", which corresponds to the English "one" (as in, one goes to church on Sunday), but is very commonly used to mean we or a group. So, we were investigating those two particular traits in particular, just by walking around the neighborhood and listening in where we could. Our group found an indoor shopping mall (away from the cold!) and spent time there. As was to be expected, we did find numerous instances of the ne erasement and the use of 'on' for nous.
About an hour later, we met on the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge crossing the Seine, to discuss our findings. It was unbelievably windy, so we didn't stay too long. From the bridge, we could see a lot of great structures, including Ile de la Cité, which is the very small island in the Seine which was essentially the very beginnings of Paris. Along the bridge fence, there were also tons of little locks that people had locked to the chains. Upon inquiry, we found out that it's a little romantic tradition. Couples will buy a lock, lock it to the fence, and then throw the key into the river to symbolize their neverending love. Awww.
From there, we were free for the day. I went with my professor and Richard, the older man of the group, to a little cafe in the area. I enjoyed the occasion and got to practice more French, and we had nice, leisurely conversation. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and planned to meet up later for dinner. On the way, Richard and I stopped in the grocery store near our hotel, which had a surprisingly large array of products. It was no Publix, but it was still very comprehensive- a person could really do all their basic grocery shopping there, instead of going to a bunch of little stores, which is more the French way. They had an especially impressive cheese selection, which I may have to investigate more before my trip home.
We took a couple hours back at the hotel to rest, and then Richard, my professor, and I all went back out to dinner. We went to a restaurant that my professor had visited in previous trips in Paris, a restaurant in the Belgian model that specializes in moules frites. Moules frites are mussels (steamed? boiled? not sure) prepared in varying ways, served with french fries. I don't think I ever had a meal specifically of mussels before, but I know I had tried them here and there. Mine were called Moules Léon, with Léon just being the name of the restaurant. It was some kind of buttery, white-wine sauce, and it was all good. Once again, we had a nice conversation, talking about various things like the French courses at UF and amusing experiences in foreign countries. After dinner, we took a brief walk around Notre Dame and the surrounding streets before finding (eventually) the nearest metro and making our way back to the hotel, where I now sit.
Overall, I am really enjoying my time here. Paris has so much to offer, and I feel I'm barely scraping the top of it. I'm getting along decently with my French, although there's always room for improvement, and I'm getting a feel for the French culture. Being here has also made me feel the need to live in a francophone environment, say either here or in Québec, for a more extended period of time. It's only then I think that I will approach my desired level of fluency. So, I think in my graduate school plans I should look for schools that either are already in francophone environments or have extended programs offered abroad. For example, my professor was telling me about exchange programs that UF has for either a semester or a full year in Rennes, where we happen to be going next Monday and Tuesday. I suppose the backup plan would just be to marry either un Québécois or un Français!
It's midnight and I still have homework to do, so bonsoir and good night!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Mardi
Today was a long day, and it's only now at midnight that I can finally get around to writing about it. After getting ready and eating breakfast at the hotel, the group met in the lobby at 10 to begin the day's activities. Our itinerary included visits to two areas of differing social classes: the first would be to Oberkampf, an area of fairly ordinary people leading their daily lives, and the second to La Place Vendôme, which an area full of chic, expensive boutiques but not a lot of your every day, ordinary citizens- instead, it just attracts visitors from other areas.
Oberkampf was a pretty normal looking area. There were your various food stores, clothing stores, cafes and restaurants, and plenty of people were out and about. As part of the assignment, we were encouraged to go sit a cafe to observe. Unfortunately, we are not quite naturals at French cafe etiquette, and much of it is still a bit of a mystery to me. Do we just sit down anywhere? Inside? Outside? Wait to be seated? It's all just a bit awkward, and I feel very out of place. We actually did sit in the wrong place, and the guy had to tell us to move elsewhere, and of course switched into English immediately. Ugh. It wasn't the best experience, but we still stayed and had coffee to warm us up.
After the cafe, we met up with the group to go to a group lunch, one of the meals included in our program. We went to a Moroccan restaurant called Chez Zak. The group meals are always nice, because everyone's together and the food is pretty much guaranteed to be good. Today was no exception: as an appetizer I had a smoked salmon dish in some kind of oil and herbs, the main course was couscous with vegetables in sauce and merguez, which were kind of like spicy sausages, and a moelleux au chocolat, which was kind of a thinner, denser chocolate cake served with some kind of creme. I also had Orangina to drink and another café (coffee), but it implies espresso. Everything was great, and the restaurant had a nice, cozy atmosphere. It was also nice and leisurely, taking about 2 hours for all the courses.
After lunch, we went on to the second locale. It was definitely very upscale, with tons of expensive stores and designers. I even recognized a few. You could also tell that the people frequenting the area were of a different nature. We didn't have much interaction until Richard, the only male (and much older) member of the group, wanted to buy perfume for his wife back home. In the small perfume shop, we had a lengthy conversation with the saleswoman, who asked us about our time in Paris, etc. We also got perfumed, and I can still smell the scent on me at this moment. On the linguistic level, the language was also slightly different between the two areas- the second area was more formal and closer to standard French, while the first was more conversational and informal. The activities today were designed to prepare us for tomorrow, when we have a guest speaker talking about her research project, which is set to analyze the speech of Paris of today. The two neighborhoods we visited are two that she is including in her project, so we got to see firsthand what she is really delving into.
After a brief discussion with our professor, we were done with scheduled activities for the day. It was only about 4:30, so we had time to spend on our own. We were close to Les Tuileries, a famous garden, so we walked through there and could also see Le Louvre and L'arc de Triomphe and la Place de la Concorde. We took photos and then tried first go to the Orangerie, a museum with impressionist paintings, but of course, it is closed on Tuesdays, as was the Louvre when we tried to make a quick stop there. Since museums were looking unlikely, we just took a short side trip to Le Marais, which is a Jewish area with a lot of shopping. We explored the area a bit and then decided to head back to the hotel for a break. Surprisingly, we met up with the other half of the group at the same metro station, so we all headed back together.
After a brief repose, we had a light dinner, walking just two minutes down the street to a sandwich stand and bakery next door. I bought a nice, warm salmon panini and a really delicious raspberry dessert, and we went back to the hotel to eat together. We planned out some ideas for the next few days during our free time, as well. Most of our sighteeing will actually have be this week, since Monday and Tuesday of next week, we'll be in Rennes, and then all but one other day include evening activities.
It was then around 9:00, so Vanessa and I went on one more excursion to fill out the day. We took a walk down to the Tour de Montparnasse, which is a giant skyscraper in our neighborhood, about 15 minutes by foot. It was built in the 70's to much public outcry, as it's a very New York-esque dark, glass building that completely dwarfs everything around it. It definitely does not fit in with the other architecture of the area. Although they offer tours, it was getting late, and we did not go up. We then walked back to the hotel, where I have been ever since, working on my homework (daily sociolinguistic journal entry) as well as my blog.
Tomorrow is another busy day, so I'll just be off! When I have more time, I will also write in French!
P.S. It is still so cold, especially at night. I'm really hoping it warms up, if only for the fact that in my pictures it looks like I'm wearing the same clothes every day.
Oberkampf was a pretty normal looking area. There were your various food stores, clothing stores, cafes and restaurants, and plenty of people were out and about. As part of the assignment, we were encouraged to go sit a cafe to observe. Unfortunately, we are not quite naturals at French cafe etiquette, and much of it is still a bit of a mystery to me. Do we just sit down anywhere? Inside? Outside? Wait to be seated? It's all just a bit awkward, and I feel very out of place. We actually did sit in the wrong place, and the guy had to tell us to move elsewhere, and of course switched into English immediately. Ugh. It wasn't the best experience, but we still stayed and had coffee to warm us up.
After the cafe, we met up with the group to go to a group lunch, one of the meals included in our program. We went to a Moroccan restaurant called Chez Zak. The group meals are always nice, because everyone's together and the food is pretty much guaranteed to be good. Today was no exception: as an appetizer I had a smoked salmon dish in some kind of oil and herbs, the main course was couscous with vegetables in sauce and merguez, which were kind of like spicy sausages, and a moelleux au chocolat, which was kind of a thinner, denser chocolate cake served with some kind of creme. I also had Orangina to drink and another café (coffee), but it implies espresso. Everything was great, and the restaurant had a nice, cozy atmosphere. It was also nice and leisurely, taking about 2 hours for all the courses.
After lunch, we went on to the second locale. It was definitely very upscale, with tons of expensive stores and designers. I even recognized a few. You could also tell that the people frequenting the area were of a different nature. We didn't have much interaction until Richard, the only male (and much older) member of the group, wanted to buy perfume for his wife back home. In the small perfume shop, we had a lengthy conversation with the saleswoman, who asked us about our time in Paris, etc. We also got perfumed, and I can still smell the scent on me at this moment. On the linguistic level, the language was also slightly different between the two areas- the second area was more formal and closer to standard French, while the first was more conversational and informal. The activities today were designed to prepare us for tomorrow, when we have a guest speaker talking about her research project, which is set to analyze the speech of Paris of today. The two neighborhoods we visited are two that she is including in her project, so we got to see firsthand what she is really delving into.
After a brief discussion with our professor, we were done with scheduled activities for the day. It was only about 4:30, so we had time to spend on our own. We were close to Les Tuileries, a famous garden, so we walked through there and could also see Le Louvre and L'arc de Triomphe and la Place de la Concorde. We took photos and then tried first go to the Orangerie, a museum with impressionist paintings, but of course, it is closed on Tuesdays, as was the Louvre when we tried to make a quick stop there. Since museums were looking unlikely, we just took a short side trip to Le Marais, which is a Jewish area with a lot of shopping. We explored the area a bit and then decided to head back to the hotel for a break. Surprisingly, we met up with the other half of the group at the same metro station, so we all headed back together.
After a brief repose, we had a light dinner, walking just two minutes down the street to a sandwich stand and bakery next door. I bought a nice, warm salmon panini and a really delicious raspberry dessert, and we went back to the hotel to eat together. We planned out some ideas for the next few days during our free time, as well. Most of our sighteeing will actually have be this week, since Monday and Tuesday of next week, we'll be in Rennes, and then all but one other day include evening activities.
It was then around 9:00, so Vanessa and I went on one more excursion to fill out the day. We took a walk down to the Tour de Montparnasse, which is a giant skyscraper in our neighborhood, about 15 minutes by foot. It was built in the 70's to much public outcry, as it's a very New York-esque dark, glass building that completely dwarfs everything around it. It definitely does not fit in with the other architecture of the area. Although they offer tours, it was getting late, and we did not go up. We then walked back to the hotel, where I have been ever since, working on my homework (daily sociolinguistic journal entry) as well as my blog.
Tomorrow is another busy day, so I'll just be off! When I have more time, I will also write in French!
P.S. It is still so cold, especially at night. I'm really hoping it warms up, if only for the fact that in my pictures it looks like I'm wearing the same clothes every day.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Lundi
Today was my first real day of my course in Paris. My roommate and I got up around 8:30, since we needed to be at the PRC for orientation at 10:00. We got ready by about 9 and then went down to breakfast at the hotel. It was nothing fancy, but good nonetheless. They had an array of pastries and bread, yogurt, cereal, juice, milk, coffee, etc. So, I just had some bread and cheese with pain au chocolat, which is just like a pastry with some chocolate here and there.
Pretty much our entire group left for the PRC together, so we just took the metro as usual and we were there in about 20 minutes. The weather yesterday was rainy and a little chilly, but today was even colder. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, and a jacket, which were thankfully sufficient. It also got increasingly windy during the day with some rain off and on.
At the PRC we went through an orientation, learning more about the professors, the courses, the staff, and some tips and warnings for life in Paris. It was pretty informative, but nothing too earth-shattering. We were also given our itineraries for the entire trip and another folder with maps and other useful info. They had more food waiting for us in the morning, and then later we were given a sandwich lunch. From there, we had a brief meeting with our professor to talk about the day's plans, which included a trip out to a shopping area to begin our observations. We were going to be looking at terms of address, like whether people used tu or vous (formal vs. informal 'you'), titles, greetings, body language, etc.
We took the metro together out to the area, Bercy Village, which is a cute little area with numerous chic little boutiques. The buildings were very, very old- medieval looking, but they had been restored into this series of shops and cafes. We also walked through a very nice park, Parc de Bercy, which was just adjacent.
Once there, we split up into pairs to go make our observations. It was a little difficult, as the weather wasn't too nice, so the area was not abundantly populated. Thus, we couldn't as much listen in- we had to make our own conversation. So, for example, I ended up inquiring about some makeup products in Sephora (and even getting them tested on me) to get some data. In another store, my partner bought some candy to elicit another interaction. We were able to get information, though- for example, "vous" was used without exception, titles like Monsieur or Madame were less common, and greetings were pretty much the uniform "bonjour". Overall, it wasn't a bad exercise, but the results were not that illuminating. I think, though, that it will get more interesting as time goes on.
After that, we walked over a pedestrian-only bridge across the Seine to get to the national library, which kind of equates to the Library of Congress. Our professor had intended on just taking us to the park to discuss our results, but we changed to the library to avoid the cold and wind. So, we discussed our findings inside the giant library. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much, since we would have had to have had a reservation for a tour, but we did see a couple huge globes that had been built and painted for Louis XIV. It was interesting to see the idea of world geography from back then- Florida was drawn on the globe, but there was no Louisiana, for example. California was also separated somehow from the rest of the continent and called an island.
After leaving the library, we found the nearest metro and took it back to the PRC, where we had a little break before our lecture. In the lecture, our professor introduced us to some notions in sociolinguistics, and we also reviewed the itinerary for the whole trip. It looks pretty intense, especially next week, where we take a 2-day trip to Rennes, a city about 2 hours away. I'm looking forward to everything we have planned, especially some guest lecturers who are fairly prominent in the field. I would like to take advantage of everything I can, ask questions, etc.
The lecture was done at 6:00, and then we were free for the day. A small group of us went back to the hotel for a few minutes and then left to seek dinner. We settled on a restaurant one of the students had been to a few days before, called Les Artistes. It was pretty quiet and a little off the beaten path. It is hard to find inexpensive restaurants in Paris unless you just want sandwiches, so it was about was I was expecting. For about 17 Euro, I had a tuna steak served with ratatouille (yes, like the movie). It was good of course, but I venture to say not spectacular. It was still presented (and tasted) very nicely, and I was not at all disappointed. We walked back to the hotel afterwards, and I am now sitting in my room to write this post.
It's getting close to 10:00, but all we have to do is be in the lobby tomorrow at 10 to leave for our activity. So, it's possible I may go out with the group, but I have not yet decided. If so, I will either edit this post or add it on to tomorrow's. Everything is going great, and I just confirmed plans for a friend to visit me this weekend, so I anticipate nothing less for the rest of the trip. If only I could afford all these fabulous boutiques I see lining the streets! I can see how Paris is the capital of fashion- I've been feeling a little out of place walking around in my running shoes, but at least my feet will thank me later. I will also have to stock up on scarves for the next time I'm here- they're everywhere!
Edit: We did go out! We just took the metro out a few stops to the Latin Quarter. It was pretty touristy, but the night scene looked pretty happening. We didn't stop anywhere but just looked around. We were also in the area of Notre Dame and took some nice night pictures. I also did a spin on "Le Point"- just kind of a metal circle on the ground marked for one historical reason or another. A girl in my group said that her French teacher told her to make a wish, spin on the le point, and you'll come back to Paris. What can it hurt, right? We then took the metro back one stop to explore a different neighborhood, filled with designer name stores. Everything was closed, but of course window shopping is always fun. We headed back home afterward- it was just a good night of exploring and seeing more of the city.
In any case, I hope everyone back home is doing well, and I'll be back before you know it. I think my readership is limited to my own family, but you never know. Feel free to leave comments. La prochaine fois, peut-être que je vais écrire un petit paragraphe en français.
-J
Pretty much our entire group left for the PRC together, so we just took the metro as usual and we were there in about 20 minutes. The weather yesterday was rainy and a little chilly, but today was even colder. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, and a jacket, which were thankfully sufficient. It also got increasingly windy during the day with some rain off and on.
At the PRC we went through an orientation, learning more about the professors, the courses, the staff, and some tips and warnings for life in Paris. It was pretty informative, but nothing too earth-shattering. We were also given our itineraries for the entire trip and another folder with maps and other useful info. They had more food waiting for us in the morning, and then later we were given a sandwich lunch. From there, we had a brief meeting with our professor to talk about the day's plans, which included a trip out to a shopping area to begin our observations. We were going to be looking at terms of address, like whether people used tu or vous (formal vs. informal 'you'), titles, greetings, body language, etc.
We took the metro together out to the area, Bercy Village, which is a cute little area with numerous chic little boutiques. The buildings were very, very old- medieval looking, but they had been restored into this series of shops and cafes. We also walked through a very nice park, Parc de Bercy, which was just adjacent.
Once there, we split up into pairs to go make our observations. It was a little difficult, as the weather wasn't too nice, so the area was not abundantly populated. Thus, we couldn't as much listen in- we had to make our own conversation. So, for example, I ended up inquiring about some makeup products in Sephora (and even getting them tested on me) to get some data. In another store, my partner bought some candy to elicit another interaction. We were able to get information, though- for example, "vous" was used without exception, titles like Monsieur or Madame were less common, and greetings were pretty much the uniform "bonjour". Overall, it wasn't a bad exercise, but the results were not that illuminating. I think, though, that it will get more interesting as time goes on.
After that, we walked over a pedestrian-only bridge across the Seine to get to the national library, which kind of equates to the Library of Congress. Our professor had intended on just taking us to the park to discuss our results, but we changed to the library to avoid the cold and wind. So, we discussed our findings inside the giant library. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much, since we would have had to have had a reservation for a tour, but we did see a couple huge globes that had been built and painted for Louis XIV. It was interesting to see the idea of world geography from back then- Florida was drawn on the globe, but there was no Louisiana, for example. California was also separated somehow from the rest of the continent and called an island.
After leaving the library, we found the nearest metro and took it back to the PRC, where we had a little break before our lecture. In the lecture, our professor introduced us to some notions in sociolinguistics, and we also reviewed the itinerary for the whole trip. It looks pretty intense, especially next week, where we take a 2-day trip to Rennes, a city about 2 hours away. I'm looking forward to everything we have planned, especially some guest lecturers who are fairly prominent in the field. I would like to take advantage of everything I can, ask questions, etc.
The lecture was done at 6:00, and then we were free for the day. A small group of us went back to the hotel for a few minutes and then left to seek dinner. We settled on a restaurant one of the students had been to a few days before, called Les Artistes. It was pretty quiet and a little off the beaten path. It is hard to find inexpensive restaurants in Paris unless you just want sandwiches, so it was about was I was expecting. For about 17 Euro, I had a tuna steak served with ratatouille (yes, like the movie). It was good of course, but I venture to say not spectacular. It was still presented (and tasted) very nicely, and I was not at all disappointed. We walked back to the hotel afterwards, and I am now sitting in my room to write this post.
It's getting close to 10:00, but all we have to do is be in the lobby tomorrow at 10 to leave for our activity. So, it's possible I may go out with the group, but I have not yet decided. If so, I will either edit this post or add it on to tomorrow's. Everything is going great, and I just confirmed plans for a friend to visit me this weekend, so I anticipate nothing less for the rest of the trip. If only I could afford all these fabulous boutiques I see lining the streets! I can see how Paris is the capital of fashion- I've been feeling a little out of place walking around in my running shoes, but at least my feet will thank me later. I will also have to stock up on scarves for the next time I'm here- they're everywhere!
Edit: We did go out! We just took the metro out a few stops to the Latin Quarter. It was pretty touristy, but the night scene looked pretty happening. We didn't stop anywhere but just looked around. We were also in the area of Notre Dame and took some nice night pictures. I also did a spin on "Le Point"- just kind of a metal circle on the ground marked for one historical reason or another. A girl in my group said that her French teacher told her to make a wish, spin on the le point, and you'll come back to Paris. What can it hurt, right? We then took the metro back one stop to explore a different neighborhood, filled with designer name stores. Everything was closed, but of course window shopping is always fun. We headed back home afterward- it was just a good night of exploring and seeing more of the city.
In any case, I hope everyone back home is doing well, and I'll be back before you know it. I think my readership is limited to my own family, but you never know. Feel free to leave comments. La prochaine fois, peut-être que je vais écrire un petit paragraphe en français.
-J
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Paris Day One, or: Can I Stay Here Forever?
Bonjour!
I have safely arrived and spent my first day in Paris, and I can already tell that this trip will feel way too short for my liking.
Recently I looked back upon my blog from Mannheim, and I appreciated the amount of detail I put in. There were things I never would have remembered! Regrettably, I never got around to posting my adventures in Amsterdam and Brussels... In any case, I will strive to make this blog as detailed as possible, so I apologize in advance for any seemingly pointless description.
I left the tiny Gainesville airport around 10:45 on Saturday morning. I flew with another girl from my program, Vanessa, who is from Gainesville and studying French and Criminology at UF. Our connection in Atlanta went smoothly, and then we were in Houston. The Houston airport turned out to be very confusing, with little signage to tell us we had to take a bus to a different terminal. We had to rush, but fortunately we made our final connection to Paris with Air France. The plane was huge and one of the nicest I've been on. I was able to choose and watch movies on my own personal TV screen (I watched a French movie, Le Siffleur, as well as Away we Go- which was great). The flight was also pretty bilingual, so I was able to practice my listening skills a bit. I also managed a bit of French with the flight attendants. For a flight, the food wasn't bad either, and also strikingly French. They even offered complimentary wine and champagne, although I didn't partake. The worst part of the flight was just its duration of close to 9 hours. Plus there was turbulence throughout most of it, so I never got a chance to walk around and stretch. We got to Paris around 8:30 am local time, which translated into 2:30 am Gainesville time. I was pretty tired but ready to move on with the day.
Vanessa and I first went through immigration uneventfully. Then we got our baggage without problem and were ready to get into the city. I hadn't really realized it before, but Charles de Gaulle airport is quite aways out of Paris. We could either take a taxi (expensive) or the RER train, so we opted for the train. My first real French interaction then was buying the ticket. I was understood easily and replied to in French, so all was well. I bought a round-trip ticket that I can use at the end to get back to the airport. We found the track and hopped onto the already waiting train.
Fortunately, neither the airport nor the train was particularly crowded. I had anticipated a stressful journey, but it really couldn't have gone better. We also had tons of time, so it was really relaxed. We could get lost for a few hours and still have plenty of time! We took the train for about half an hour until we got to our stop, where we switched from the RER onto a regular metro. We had directions from our program, so it was all very easy, except for a bit of lugging my suitcase up and down stairs.
Now, I almost don't want to admit to this, but one noteworthy incident did occur. The turnstiles to the metro are pretty narrow, and there are also doors to push as you go through. It ended up being a little difficult to get through with all our baggage-- practically a getting caught scenario. Something must have happened- my backpack getting caught on something, I don't even know. But Vanessa and I made it through the turnstile and went down to the tracks, and then a guy comes up to me, with my purse in his hand! He said in French that he found it upstairs, as it had fallen onto the ground. I couldn't believe it, but sure enough, my backpack was open. At first it seemed suspicious- had someone tried to take my stuff? But he handed it back to me and told me to be careful. I looked inside and all my belongings were in place- including my iPod, camera, and phone. Fortunately I wouldn't have lost my wallet and passport, as they were elsewhere, but still I was mortified. I thanked him profusely and am so grateful that it was a good person who found it and that the consequences weren't worse. It really could have been disastrous and put a damper on the whole trip. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson and will be extra attentive from now on. I also have a higher respect for Parisians, especially after hearing horror stories about pickpockets and the like.
After that scare, Vanessa and I got onto the metro for a couple stops to get the exit for our hotel. It had just then started to rain, and we had to wheel around our stuff until we found the hotel. The streets can be a bit confusing, as there are often these kind of circular intersections with streets going every which way. Our first couple tries were incorrect, but we ultimately found the correct street and made our way down to the hotel, where we immediately saw others from our group. Overall, I had been pretty anxious about getting to where we needed to be, but it went very smoothly. I was glad to have had a partner as well.
We got to the hotel around 11:30, but our rooms weren't yet ready. We hung out in another girl's room for a while just resting and napping. Then I was able to go up to my room until we had to leave for our orientation.
My first impressions of the area were good. There are tons of cute cafes and little boutiques, and overall it is exactly how you might imagine Paris to look. However, within the first 10 minutes of walking around, I spied a Starbucks, a McDonald's, a Subway, and even a KFC. Tsk, tsk. The hotel itself is also pretty nice. There's a small lobby where we checked in, and the rooms are on the higher levels. There is a spiral staircase going up as well as one elevator. The elevator was tiny! Literally one person and their luggage could fit. I am on the French 2nd floor (room number starts with 2) which equates to the American 3rd floor, as the ground floor counts as our 1st floor. The room is small but definitely sufficient. We have two twin beds, low to the ground, a desk and a couple chairs, a closet/bureau, and even a TV. The bathroom is pretty standard, but the shower is remarkably small. I would venture to say it's about 2.5 x 2.5 feet. All in all though, the room is fine and clean, and I expect that my two weeks here will fly by.
Around 4:00, about 5 of us from my program left to go to our welcome reception at the Paris Research Center. We took the metro since it was raining, but we could also walk there in about 20 minutes. While packing, I had found some left over Paris metro tickets from 2 years ago. I had hoped that they would still work, but no dice. So, I coughed up the 1.60 Euros for a ticket, and we only had to go about three stops before we were there. After a little navigating, we got to Reid Hall, which is where UF houses the PRC. It's a very pretty historic building that I believe was once a school and also some kind of American embassy or consulate, something along those lines. They had some snacks and drinks set up while we waited for everyone to arrive, which took quite a while. We have our main orientation tomorrow, but we got a brief introduction to the building and to Paris. We also got student ID cards and transportation pass good for our stay. Interestingly, we are all listed as Art History students on our IDs. Apparently, this will allow us free access to a lot of Paris' museums. Our director justified it by saying that at the moment we go to those museums, we are Art History students-- clever, I say. We also got an introduction to the other courses and professors (I know mine quite well already, though), as well as the PRC staff. Everyone was very friendly and eager to help with any of our concerns.
It was around 6:00, so the entire group of students (70 ish?) and professors went out to our welcome dinner. It was about a 20 minute walk and I enjoyed seeing more of Paris along the way. We got to the restaurant, and we were led to the back to all sit together. We grouped ourselves by class, so our group of 7 (will be 9 tomorrow) sat with our professor. The dinner was great, and so was the service, especially considering our number. We had our choice of beverage, entree, and dessert, and we all had the same appetizer and bread. My meal thus consisted of bread, white wine, mozzarella and tomato pesto appetizer, chicken and mashed potatoes, and a warm crumbly fruit cobbler-esque dessert. Everything was delicious. The restaurant was also hosting an improv show simultaneously, but unfortunately we were in a different area and didn't get to watch. We had a very nice time talking, though, and we all got to know each other better. It looks like we're going to have a great little group.
Dinner took about two and a half hours, and we just walked back to the hotel afterward. That brings us to the present, as I am sitting writing! The hotel technically has really expensive internet, but I was able to latch onto another nearby network for free.
Tomorrow is our main orientation as well as our first real day of class. We won't be doing a lot of classroom work, but rather doing activities out and about. We don't have the full itinerary yet, so a lot of the details are still a mystery.
Already I am having a great time, and I know it will just continue. I will hopefully get a bit more into my French, but I've still been fully successful so far. I also am greatly looking forward to doing some field work in linguistics! This may end up being the type of thing I do for a living.
I will try to update again tomorrow, but they warned us that we're going to be very busy. I promise to document every day eventually, though.
Bonne journée et à la prochaine!
Jenna
I have safely arrived and spent my first day in Paris, and I can already tell that this trip will feel way too short for my liking.
Recently I looked back upon my blog from Mannheim, and I appreciated the amount of detail I put in. There were things I never would have remembered! Regrettably, I never got around to posting my adventures in Amsterdam and Brussels... In any case, I will strive to make this blog as detailed as possible, so I apologize in advance for any seemingly pointless description.
I left the tiny Gainesville airport around 10:45 on Saturday morning. I flew with another girl from my program, Vanessa, who is from Gainesville and studying French and Criminology at UF. Our connection in Atlanta went smoothly, and then we were in Houston. The Houston airport turned out to be very confusing, with little signage to tell us we had to take a bus to a different terminal. We had to rush, but fortunately we made our final connection to Paris with Air France. The plane was huge and one of the nicest I've been on. I was able to choose and watch movies on my own personal TV screen (I watched a French movie, Le Siffleur, as well as Away we Go- which was great). The flight was also pretty bilingual, so I was able to practice my listening skills a bit. I also managed a bit of French with the flight attendants. For a flight, the food wasn't bad either, and also strikingly French. They even offered complimentary wine and champagne, although I didn't partake. The worst part of the flight was just its duration of close to 9 hours. Plus there was turbulence throughout most of it, so I never got a chance to walk around and stretch. We got to Paris around 8:30 am local time, which translated into 2:30 am Gainesville time. I was pretty tired but ready to move on with the day.
Vanessa and I first went through immigration uneventfully. Then we got our baggage without problem and were ready to get into the city. I hadn't really realized it before, but Charles de Gaulle airport is quite aways out of Paris. We could either take a taxi (expensive) or the RER train, so we opted for the train. My first real French interaction then was buying the ticket. I was understood easily and replied to in French, so all was well. I bought a round-trip ticket that I can use at the end to get back to the airport. We found the track and hopped onto the already waiting train.
Fortunately, neither the airport nor the train was particularly crowded. I had anticipated a stressful journey, but it really couldn't have gone better. We also had tons of time, so it was really relaxed. We could get lost for a few hours and still have plenty of time! We took the train for about half an hour until we got to our stop, where we switched from the RER onto a regular metro. We had directions from our program, so it was all very easy, except for a bit of lugging my suitcase up and down stairs.
Now, I almost don't want to admit to this, but one noteworthy incident did occur. The turnstiles to the metro are pretty narrow, and there are also doors to push as you go through. It ended up being a little difficult to get through with all our baggage-- practically a getting caught scenario. Something must have happened- my backpack getting caught on something, I don't even know. But Vanessa and I made it through the turnstile and went down to the tracks, and then a guy comes up to me, with my purse in his hand! He said in French that he found it upstairs, as it had fallen onto the ground. I couldn't believe it, but sure enough, my backpack was open. At first it seemed suspicious- had someone tried to take my stuff? But he handed it back to me and told me to be careful. I looked inside and all my belongings were in place- including my iPod, camera, and phone. Fortunately I wouldn't have lost my wallet and passport, as they were elsewhere, but still I was mortified. I thanked him profusely and am so grateful that it was a good person who found it and that the consequences weren't worse. It really could have been disastrous and put a damper on the whole trip. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson and will be extra attentive from now on. I also have a higher respect for Parisians, especially after hearing horror stories about pickpockets and the like.
After that scare, Vanessa and I got onto the metro for a couple stops to get the exit for our hotel. It had just then started to rain, and we had to wheel around our stuff until we found the hotel. The streets can be a bit confusing, as there are often these kind of circular intersections with streets going every which way. Our first couple tries were incorrect, but we ultimately found the correct street and made our way down to the hotel, where we immediately saw others from our group. Overall, I had been pretty anxious about getting to where we needed to be, but it went very smoothly. I was glad to have had a partner as well.
We got to the hotel around 11:30, but our rooms weren't yet ready. We hung out in another girl's room for a while just resting and napping. Then I was able to go up to my room until we had to leave for our orientation.
My first impressions of the area were good. There are tons of cute cafes and little boutiques, and overall it is exactly how you might imagine Paris to look. However, within the first 10 minutes of walking around, I spied a Starbucks, a McDonald's, a Subway, and even a KFC. Tsk, tsk. The hotel itself is also pretty nice. There's a small lobby where we checked in, and the rooms are on the higher levels. There is a spiral staircase going up as well as one elevator. The elevator was tiny! Literally one person and their luggage could fit. I am on the French 2nd floor (room number starts with 2) which equates to the American 3rd floor, as the ground floor counts as our 1st floor. The room is small but definitely sufficient. We have two twin beds, low to the ground, a desk and a couple chairs, a closet/bureau, and even a TV. The bathroom is pretty standard, but the shower is remarkably small. I would venture to say it's about 2.5 x 2.5 feet. All in all though, the room is fine and clean, and I expect that my two weeks here will fly by.
Around 4:00, about 5 of us from my program left to go to our welcome reception at the Paris Research Center. We took the metro since it was raining, but we could also walk there in about 20 minutes. While packing, I had found some left over Paris metro tickets from 2 years ago. I had hoped that they would still work, but no dice. So, I coughed up the 1.60 Euros for a ticket, and we only had to go about three stops before we were there. After a little navigating, we got to Reid Hall, which is where UF houses the PRC. It's a very pretty historic building that I believe was once a school and also some kind of American embassy or consulate, something along those lines. They had some snacks and drinks set up while we waited for everyone to arrive, which took quite a while. We have our main orientation tomorrow, but we got a brief introduction to the building and to Paris. We also got student ID cards and transportation pass good for our stay. Interestingly, we are all listed as Art History students on our IDs. Apparently, this will allow us free access to a lot of Paris' museums. Our director justified it by saying that at the moment we go to those museums, we are Art History students-- clever, I say. We also got an introduction to the other courses and professors (I know mine quite well already, though), as well as the PRC staff. Everyone was very friendly and eager to help with any of our concerns.
It was around 6:00, so the entire group of students (70 ish?) and professors went out to our welcome dinner. It was about a 20 minute walk and I enjoyed seeing more of Paris along the way. We got to the restaurant, and we were led to the back to all sit together. We grouped ourselves by class, so our group of 7 (will be 9 tomorrow) sat with our professor. The dinner was great, and so was the service, especially considering our number. We had our choice of beverage, entree, and dessert, and we all had the same appetizer and bread. My meal thus consisted of bread, white wine, mozzarella and tomato pesto appetizer, chicken and mashed potatoes, and a warm crumbly fruit cobbler-esque dessert. Everything was delicious. The restaurant was also hosting an improv show simultaneously, but unfortunately we were in a different area and didn't get to watch. We had a very nice time talking, though, and we all got to know each other better. It looks like we're going to have a great little group.
Dinner took about two and a half hours, and we just walked back to the hotel afterward. That brings us to the present, as I am sitting writing! The hotel technically has really expensive internet, but I was able to latch onto another nearby network for free.
Tomorrow is our main orientation as well as our first real day of class. We won't be doing a lot of classroom work, but rather doing activities out and about. We don't have the full itinerary yet, so a lot of the details are still a mystery.
Already I am having a great time, and I know it will just continue. I will hopefully get a bit more into my French, but I've still been fully successful so far. I also am greatly looking forward to doing some field work in linguistics! This may end up being the type of thing I do for a living.
I will try to update again tomorrow, but they warned us that we're going to be very busy. I promise to document every day eventually, though.
Bonne journée et à la prochaine!
Jenna
Saturday, April 24, 2010
New Look for a New Trip
Bonjour à tous et à toutes,
In light of a new study abroad trip, I am bringing this old blog back from obsolescence. This time, I will be headed to Paris for two weeks for a program called "Sociolinguistics in the City." It's a French course designed to study the French spoken in Paris from a sociolinguistic perspective. Needless to say, I can't wait.
I leave on May 1st, so expect a post in a week or so.
à bientôt!
In light of a new study abroad trip, I am bringing this old blog back from obsolescence. This time, I will be headed to Paris for two weeks for a program called "Sociolinguistics in the City." It's a French course designed to study the French spoken in Paris from a sociolinguistic perspective. Needless to say, I can't wait.
I leave on May 1st, so expect a post in a week or so.
à bientôt!
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wrapping Up
Hello everyone,
Tonight is sadly my last night in Germany, and I just wanted to have one final post here. I still have not covered the events of the past 2 weeks, but I believe I will make that my in-flight project. I won't go into a long summation post just yet, but if you've been reading my blog, please stick around for just a few more entries, which I should have finished by the end of this weekend at the latest. I look forward to seeing everyone back at home, it isn't too much longer! I can only hope for smooth travels and that all my baggage gets home with me.
See you soon!
Tonight is sadly my last night in Germany, and I just wanted to have one final post here. I still have not covered the events of the past 2 weeks, but I believe I will make that my in-flight project. I won't go into a long summation post just yet, but if you've been reading my blog, please stick around for just a few more entries, which I should have finished by the end of this weekend at the latest. I look forward to seeing everyone back at home, it isn't too much longer! I can only hope for smooth travels and that all my baggage gets home with me.
See you soon!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Wir reisen nach München
Guten Tag! As promised, in this entry I will give the full report on our weekend trip to Munich, oder München auf Deutsch.
Instead of the usual four or five of us traveling, this weekend it was more- another group of three students from our class also were traveling to Munich, and they stayed at our same hostel. Joey and Giselle were staying in Mannheim Friday night, and would travel to Munich the next morning, so Friday afternoon Cait, Erica, and Ashely, Richie, and Sam were all at the Hauptbahnhof. We took a three hour Zug and arrived in Mannheim around 4:30. At the exit of the Bahnhof there was an advertisement sign pointing us in the direction of our hostel, the Meininger Hostel, which is a chain of hostels throughout Europe, so we were able to just walk there in about 10 minutes. Munich seemed like a very nice city, but it had a different feel to it than Berlin- less cold and stone, and more inviting and modern, and we were already spotting beer gardens and tons of little restaurants. We all checked into the hostel- Erica, Cait, and I had booked one of the large dorms, so we were a bit anxious to see how it would be. We went up to the room and entered with our key card, and there were two doors. To the left was a large room of about 10 beds, and a bathroom, bunk style, and most of them were already taken, and of course there were people smoking (in a strictly non-smoking hostel) on the balcony (which was for emergency purposes only). Fortunately to the right there was a smaller little room with only four beds and another bathroom, and only one bed was taken, so we swooped in and took those three. We had each been given a little card which fit in a plastic holder next to the bed, claiming it as ours, and the beds and bathroom were also clean and fresh, and we even had lockers in the room to store our stuff. A few minutes later we met the other group downstairs, and we headed off first to the Hauptbahnhof to purchase public transport passes for that day and Saturday (although in Germany it's more like the honor system and passes are hardly ever checked, the only country I've been in like that so far). We had to buy a more expensive pass for Saturday since our plans included going out to Dachau, which was in the outer portions of the Munich transport system. After that, we headed off to find some dinner.
Using information from both Cait's and my travel books, we located one of the most famous beer gardens in all of Munich: Augustiner-Keller, which has been around since the 1800's, and the beer since 1328. There were over 5000 seats, although we still had to look around to find some suitable ones. At first we sat at one of the round tables, but was soon told that it was a reserved Stammtisch- even the names of the regulars had been put around it at each place. But soon enough we found somewhere under the many trees, and we ordered. We all got similar things: Wurst and Kartoffelsalat, or Spätzle, which is a sort of curly egg noodle that is popular here. I also drank beer, which I figured I may as well do since I wouldn't be back in Munich of all places for quite a while- it's still the only time I've drank a full glass of beer in Germany, since it's not really high on my list of favorite tastes. But it was enjoyable enough, especially with our most delicious Wurst and the best Kartoffelsalat I've had in Deutschland. Unfortunately, almost as soon as we finished eating it started to rain, so we high-tailed it inside to finish our drinks. It was a different atmosphere inside: there were huge long wooden tables and benches, and we just sat down where it was empty. It was fun just being with the group, and a couple people ordered dessert as we just waited out the rain. After a while though, we were finished and left the garden. We decided just to do some city exploring, so we went to Marienplatz, one of the biggest public areas, where we saw the famous Glockenspiel (the bells in the church clock tower, where little characters pop out like in a cuckoo clock). We didn't have anything in particular to do, so we just wandered around getting a feel for the city, and then eventually decided to head back. We took an S-Bahn to our hostel, but it had decided to start raining again, so we were quite wet when we got back. We had a good night's sleep, which was valuable since we were getting up early the next day.
In the morning we got up early to get to the Hauptbahnhof by about 7. We ate breakfast there and then boarded a regional train to Dachau, for which we could use our Munich transport tickets. The journey out took about 30 minutes, and then we were in the little town of Dachau, but from there we still had to take a short bus to get to the former concentration camp. It was weird to think about Dachau being an actual town with such a place right inside it, although it's possible that the town has changed greatly in the past 60 years. I will just give a little information about Dachau: it was the first concentration camp opened in Germany, and it was used as a model for ones that followed. Over 200,000 prisoners were housed there and many died, but it was not one of the so-called "death camps." Most of the deaths were due to disease and malnutrition, including a typhus epidemic which we learned about during our visit. We arrived at the camp and we got audio tours which allowed to get detailed information as we went around. It was a very solemn visit, and the first thing that we saw as we walked down the gravel road were the former train tracks that ran by the camp, followed by the recognizable iron gate with the phrase, "ARBEIT MACHT FREI," meaning "Work sets one free." We walked through the gate and then we could see the lay of the land. On the right was the museum, and then on the left behind the large expanse of gravel where roll call had taken place, the camp continued far back. I must note that the original buildings and barracks had all been torn down. There had been two long rows of barracks, but now there are only the two in very front, which are reconstructions. That's where we started, and inside one of those buildings you could see how the quarters had progressed throughout the Holocaust- in the first room the bunks were only double, in the second there were more people squeezed into three levels, and in the third room there were no more individual bunks, but rather one large bunk in two levels. Our audio guides told us that more and more people were put into these rooms as the war went on- often a room designed for 50 would hold 200 people. In the colorless building we also saw the room which housed the toilets as well as one with washing stations. It was all very grim, and with our audio guides we were also able to listen to prisoner testimonies that had been written in the years following the war. After going through that building, we headed down the Camp Road, which was the wide gravel road going down the two rows of barracks toward the back of the camp. In the back several religious memorials had been erected: a Protestant church/memorial, a Catholic memorial, and the Jewish memorial. They had all been built in different ways, but they all symbolized the horror of what had happened, as well as the sentiment that something like that would never happen again. At the back of the camp, we turned left to head into another area. We saw the perimeter ditch and fence, where many had died trying to escape, and then there were two buildings, both of which were crematoriums. Originally there had just been one, but it bleakly had not been sufficient, so another one had to have been built. Inside there were ovens where the dead were cremated, and there was also a sign indicating that prisoners had also been hung from the rafters. We also went into the former gas chamber, which was just a concrete room with false shower-head-looking grates on the ceiling, and which also had grates on the side for inserting gas pellets, and also a way for guards to look inside, however, the chamber was never used at Dachau. Stepping outside there was a monument of "The Unknown Prisoner," as well as many other stones memorializing all who had died. Around a corner into the woods was the "grave of thousands unknown," which lay in front of a now grown-over cement wall which had been used to shoot prisoners against. The gravel path eventually led back around to the entrance of that part of the camp. At that point, we had seen nearly all of the physical parts of the camp, except for another memorial erected in 1997. It was a huge metal sculpture, very jagged and twisted, in which one could make it portions of bodies intertwined with a kind of abstract barbed wire. I believe the design had won in an international contest, and had then been erected. There was also a wall with the message "never again" written in various languages, and another Jewish wall memorial. We went then into the museum, where there was hours' worth of information. We meandered through the displays, reading about the history of the camp, what had happened there, and all sort of other information over the atrocity. We were only able to do half of the museum before a film was starting, so we went to that (it ended up not being much more informative). We went through the other half of the museum, and then it was time to go. The camp had a very different sort of experience: on one hand, it had been an informative look into history, but at the same time it was an emotional story of human atrocity and horror. We left the camp having learned a lot, and we took the same train back to the city center.
After a brief stop at the hostel, we had a quick lunch at a restaurant across the street before we were meeting Joey and Giselle at the Hauptbahnhof. They had also visited Dachau on their own in the morning, although we had not crossed paths there. After some discussion with the rest of the group, we all decided to go to the Deutsches Museum, which according to my travel book is one of the best things to do in Munich. In the vicinity of the museum was some live music and tons of people, for we were there doing the 850th anniversary of Munich festival, so it was cool being there with an event going on. We all entered the museum and wandered at will. The museum was possibly the most confusing museum I've ever been in. There all are sorts of twists, turns, corridors, and very little signage. Nevertheless, I made it a point to find a hall of musical instruments, which was very interesting- there were tons of old pianos and harpsichords, and other related instruments. Also there was the trautonium, an electric instrument used to create the sounds for Hitchcock's The Birds. I also saw a reconstruction of Galileo's workshop, and the famous Enigma machine, used in World War II for encoding messages. The musem was huge, with 6 floors, so there's no way I could possibly have seen everything, but I got a good overview. After the museum, the group split: I went with Richie, Giselle, and Ashley to the BMW Museum, and Erica and Cait tried to go to the Residenz, a palace, which ended up being closed. The BMW Museum had not been mentioned in my travel book, so I didn't know about it, but I'm glad that Richie knew about it, because it was great. We saw pretty much every model of BMW from the beginning of time, and everything was housed in a super sleek modern building. You could also listen to motors as they progressed through time, and there was one particularly interesting exhibit: the model letter/numbers that one sees on the back of cars had been taken off, and they were hanging in a huge sort of mobile. The higher to the ceiling they were (as shown by huge numbered years going down the wall), the newer the model. There were tons of little plaques hanging. We also saw a lot of motorcycles, including the BMW K1200R, which happens to be David's favorite bike of all time. Before we entered the museum there was also an interactive showroom- we could see the new cars, including a new hydrogen-powered one, we could see the pressure exerted on the brakes while driving in a sort of game-looking thing, we could see all the interior and exterior colors ever offered, and all sort of interesting facts. I also got to sit in a brand new convertible (I think it suits me). I really enjoyed the museum, and I'm happy that I was able to see it.
After the museum, we all met up again in the Olympiapark, site of the 1972 Summer Olympics. It was a very interesting park with interesting architure: the buildings are almost tent-looking, very glassy and wavy. There was a huge soccer stadium and lake, and we just hung out there for a while as we waited for the rest of group. Soon we were all reunited, and we were all hungry so we headed to find some dinner. We went to a recommended brewery, although our experience wasn't as good as the previous night's. We didn't get much attention, and we were all squeezed into a tiny table. I ordered a supposedly local fish dish, which didn't turn out anything like I expected, but it was still good, and it was served with an apple-horseradish which turned out to be excellent. One of our friends from the MEMS program, Kristin, had joined us at dinner, since she had just arrived alone in Munich from a trip somewhere else, and after dinner we checked her into her hostel. A small group of us decided to go out once more to check out the festivities going on with the festival, so we headed back out to where we were earlier in the day. There was some kind of a concert and dancing going on, not with a live band but with a DJ, and I must say there was an interesting selection of music. We heard everything from "Hit the Road, Jack," to "I'm Walking on Sunshine" to "We Will Rock You," and a few songs I'm sure could only be from Eurovision. And let me tell you, the Germans loved all these songs, and we were all wondering how they knew them. It was a little bit weird, but very fun. We made our way to the second row, as well, and the crowd was energetic and fun as everyone danced to the 10+ years old music. The DJ stopped playing at 1 am, and that's when we headed back to our hostel to get as much sleep as we could before getting up yet again very early.
We all met downstairs in the hostel at 6:45, checked out, and headed to the Hauptbahnhof. We were able to leave the bulk of our belongings in a locker there, and then we got breakfast and got on a train. Destination: Füssen, about 2 hours away. I slept on the train and was well rested by the time we got there, around 9:30. What is so special about Füssen? It is the small town around Neuschwanstein Castle, otherwise known as the model for Disney's Cinderella Castle and entire Disney logo. From the Bahnhof we took a bus to the base of the mountain, where we collected our pre-reserved tickets for the guided tour of the castle, which is nestled on the side of a mountain. We had three options for going up: we could walk for free, pay for a bus, or pay for a horse-drawn carriage. We decided to walk. Now, supposedly you can get to the top in 40 minutes or 30 at a good pace. We got there in 20 minutes, so I just figure that we are expert walkers. It wasn't a bad walk, but of course it was just a fairly steep incline all the way up. We had an excellent view from the top, but we continued a bit past the castle to get to Mary's Bridge, which spans a waterfall and gives you an excellent view of the castle from behind, and also a great site for pictures. Just our luck that the back of castle was undergoing construction and covered with scaffolding, but we were able to frame our pictures in such a way that it was covered. But the castle and the scenery was just breathtaking, and definitely very Disney-esque. Our tour was scheduled for 11:45, so we headed back down to the castle to wait. The castle had been built over 15 years for a King Ludwig II, but we learned that he only lived there for 100 days before he died in mysterious circumstances. Our tour was very interesting, and the inside of the castle was very different- it was very colorful, and had been built as an homage to the composer Richard Wagner, so inside there were many references to his work. There were also many swans, which was the symbol of the king, and in fact the name Neuschwanstein really means "new swan stone." Interestingly, only certain parts of the castle were ever finished before Ludwig's death, so we skipped entire floors of the castle on the tour. Even the throne had never been installed. In the kings chamber, there were wood carvings that had taken 4 carpenters over a year to do, and there was even a secret door that led to a flushing toilet and running water, which was very rare for the time. Visting the castle was great, and I really learned a lot about it that I had never known. After the tour we hiked back down the mountain, had lunch, and then caught another 2-hour train back to Munich. We still had about an hour to kill before our reserved train back to Mannheim, so we just wandered around for a bit in nearby Marienplatz. We said goodbye to Kristin, who had to stay in Munich by herself for a few more hours, and then finally boarded our train back to Mannheim. In order to have fewer train changes we had booked an IC train, which was still fast but not quite as nice on the inside, but we still had a pleasant journey back home. We arrived back around 8:30, and then went to our dorms to recover from our incredibly busy weekend.
I hope you've enjoyed this book of an entry! I'm still behind, but I know that I will get caught up eventually. I expect in my next entry to cover the events of last week's school week, and then have another for the weekend we just had. I can't believe I'll be home in a few days, the time here has really flown by. I'll write again soon- tomorrow with any luck!
Ich denke, dass mein Deutsch viel besser ist, und ich habe viele neue Wörter gelernt. Ich finde, es ist jetzt für mich leichter, Deutsch zu sprechen und verstehen. Ich habe meine Reisen viel genossen, und ich hoffe, dass ihr mein Blog interessant gefunden habt!
Aufwiederschreiben!
Instead of the usual four or five of us traveling, this weekend it was more- another group of three students from our class also were traveling to Munich, and they stayed at our same hostel. Joey and Giselle were staying in Mannheim Friday night, and would travel to Munich the next morning, so Friday afternoon Cait, Erica, and Ashely, Richie, and Sam were all at the Hauptbahnhof. We took a three hour Zug and arrived in Mannheim around 4:30. At the exit of the Bahnhof there was an advertisement sign pointing us in the direction of our hostel, the Meininger Hostel, which is a chain of hostels throughout Europe, so we were able to just walk there in about 10 minutes. Munich seemed like a very nice city, but it had a different feel to it than Berlin- less cold and stone, and more inviting and modern, and we were already spotting beer gardens and tons of little restaurants. We all checked into the hostel- Erica, Cait, and I had booked one of the large dorms, so we were a bit anxious to see how it would be. We went up to the room and entered with our key card, and there were two doors. To the left was a large room of about 10 beds, and a bathroom, bunk style, and most of them were already taken, and of course there were people smoking (in a strictly non-smoking hostel) on the balcony (which was for emergency purposes only). Fortunately to the right there was a smaller little room with only four beds and another bathroom, and only one bed was taken, so we swooped in and took those three. We had each been given a little card which fit in a plastic holder next to the bed, claiming it as ours, and the beds and bathroom were also clean and fresh, and we even had lockers in the room to store our stuff. A few minutes later we met the other group downstairs, and we headed off first to the Hauptbahnhof to purchase public transport passes for that day and Saturday (although in Germany it's more like the honor system and passes are hardly ever checked, the only country I've been in like that so far). We had to buy a more expensive pass for Saturday since our plans included going out to Dachau, which was in the outer portions of the Munich transport system. After that, we headed off to find some dinner.
Using information from both Cait's and my travel books, we located one of the most famous beer gardens in all of Munich: Augustiner-Keller, which has been around since the 1800's, and the beer since 1328. There were over 5000 seats, although we still had to look around to find some suitable ones. At first we sat at one of the round tables, but was soon told that it was a reserved Stammtisch- even the names of the regulars had been put around it at each place. But soon enough we found somewhere under the many trees, and we ordered. We all got similar things: Wurst and Kartoffelsalat, or Spätzle, which is a sort of curly egg noodle that is popular here. I also drank beer, which I figured I may as well do since I wouldn't be back in Munich of all places for quite a while- it's still the only time I've drank a full glass of beer in Germany, since it's not really high on my list of favorite tastes. But it was enjoyable enough, especially with our most delicious Wurst and the best Kartoffelsalat I've had in Deutschland. Unfortunately, almost as soon as we finished eating it started to rain, so we high-tailed it inside to finish our drinks. It was a different atmosphere inside: there were huge long wooden tables and benches, and we just sat down where it was empty. It was fun just being with the group, and a couple people ordered dessert as we just waited out the rain. After a while though, we were finished and left the garden. We decided just to do some city exploring, so we went to Marienplatz, one of the biggest public areas, where we saw the famous Glockenspiel (the bells in the church clock tower, where little characters pop out like in a cuckoo clock). We didn't have anything in particular to do, so we just wandered around getting a feel for the city, and then eventually decided to head back. We took an S-Bahn to our hostel, but it had decided to start raining again, so we were quite wet when we got back. We had a good night's sleep, which was valuable since we were getting up early the next day.
In the morning we got up early to get to the Hauptbahnhof by about 7. We ate breakfast there and then boarded a regional train to Dachau, for which we could use our Munich transport tickets. The journey out took about 30 minutes, and then we were in the little town of Dachau, but from there we still had to take a short bus to get to the former concentration camp. It was weird to think about Dachau being an actual town with such a place right inside it, although it's possible that the town has changed greatly in the past 60 years. I will just give a little information about Dachau: it was the first concentration camp opened in Germany, and it was used as a model for ones that followed. Over 200,000 prisoners were housed there and many died, but it was not one of the so-called "death camps." Most of the deaths were due to disease and malnutrition, including a typhus epidemic which we learned about during our visit. We arrived at the camp and we got audio tours which allowed to get detailed information as we went around. It was a very solemn visit, and the first thing that we saw as we walked down the gravel road were the former train tracks that ran by the camp, followed by the recognizable iron gate with the phrase, "ARBEIT MACHT FREI," meaning "Work sets one free." We walked through the gate and then we could see the lay of the land. On the right was the museum, and then on the left behind the large expanse of gravel where roll call had taken place, the camp continued far back. I must note that the original buildings and barracks had all been torn down. There had been two long rows of barracks, but now there are only the two in very front, which are reconstructions. That's where we started, and inside one of those buildings you could see how the quarters had progressed throughout the Holocaust- in the first room the bunks were only double, in the second there were more people squeezed into three levels, and in the third room there were no more individual bunks, but rather one large bunk in two levels. Our audio guides told us that more and more people were put into these rooms as the war went on- often a room designed for 50 would hold 200 people. In the colorless building we also saw the room which housed the toilets as well as one with washing stations. It was all very grim, and with our audio guides we were also able to listen to prisoner testimonies that had been written in the years following the war. After going through that building, we headed down the Camp Road, which was the wide gravel road going down the two rows of barracks toward the back of the camp. In the back several religious memorials had been erected: a Protestant church/memorial, a Catholic memorial, and the Jewish memorial. They had all been built in different ways, but they all symbolized the horror of what had happened, as well as the sentiment that something like that would never happen again. At the back of the camp, we turned left to head into another area. We saw the perimeter ditch and fence, where many had died trying to escape, and then there were two buildings, both of which were crematoriums. Originally there had just been one, but it bleakly had not been sufficient, so another one had to have been built. Inside there were ovens where the dead were cremated, and there was also a sign indicating that prisoners had also been hung from the rafters. We also went into the former gas chamber, which was just a concrete room with false shower-head-looking grates on the ceiling, and which also had grates on the side for inserting gas pellets, and also a way for guards to look inside, however, the chamber was never used at Dachau. Stepping outside there was a monument of "The Unknown Prisoner," as well as many other stones memorializing all who had died. Around a corner into the woods was the "grave of thousands unknown," which lay in front of a now grown-over cement wall which had been used to shoot prisoners against. The gravel path eventually led back around to the entrance of that part of the camp. At that point, we had seen nearly all of the physical parts of the camp, except for another memorial erected in 1997. It was a huge metal sculpture, very jagged and twisted, in which one could make it portions of bodies intertwined with a kind of abstract barbed wire. I believe the design had won in an international contest, and had then been erected. There was also a wall with the message "never again" written in various languages, and another Jewish wall memorial. We went then into the museum, where there was hours' worth of information. We meandered through the displays, reading about the history of the camp, what had happened there, and all sort of other information over the atrocity. We were only able to do half of the museum before a film was starting, so we went to that (it ended up not being much more informative). We went through the other half of the museum, and then it was time to go. The camp had a very different sort of experience: on one hand, it had been an informative look into history, but at the same time it was an emotional story of human atrocity and horror. We left the camp having learned a lot, and we took the same train back to the city center.
After a brief stop at the hostel, we had a quick lunch at a restaurant across the street before we were meeting Joey and Giselle at the Hauptbahnhof. They had also visited Dachau on their own in the morning, although we had not crossed paths there. After some discussion with the rest of the group, we all decided to go to the Deutsches Museum, which according to my travel book is one of the best things to do in Munich. In the vicinity of the museum was some live music and tons of people, for we were there doing the 850th anniversary of Munich festival, so it was cool being there with an event going on. We all entered the museum and wandered at will. The museum was possibly the most confusing museum I've ever been in. There all are sorts of twists, turns, corridors, and very little signage. Nevertheless, I made it a point to find a hall of musical instruments, which was very interesting- there were tons of old pianos and harpsichords, and other related instruments. Also there was the trautonium, an electric instrument used to create the sounds for Hitchcock's The Birds. I also saw a reconstruction of Galileo's workshop, and the famous Enigma machine, used in World War II for encoding messages. The musem was huge, with 6 floors, so there's no way I could possibly have seen everything, but I got a good overview. After the museum, the group split: I went with Richie, Giselle, and Ashley to the BMW Museum, and Erica and Cait tried to go to the Residenz, a palace, which ended up being closed. The BMW Museum had not been mentioned in my travel book, so I didn't know about it, but I'm glad that Richie knew about it, because it was great. We saw pretty much every model of BMW from the beginning of time, and everything was housed in a super sleek modern building. You could also listen to motors as they progressed through time, and there was one particularly interesting exhibit: the model letter/numbers that one sees on the back of cars had been taken off, and they were hanging in a huge sort of mobile. The higher to the ceiling they were (as shown by huge numbered years going down the wall), the newer the model. There were tons of little plaques hanging. We also saw a lot of motorcycles, including the BMW K1200R, which happens to be David's favorite bike of all time. Before we entered the museum there was also an interactive showroom- we could see the new cars, including a new hydrogen-powered one, we could see the pressure exerted on the brakes while driving in a sort of game-looking thing, we could see all the interior and exterior colors ever offered, and all sort of interesting facts. I also got to sit in a brand new convertible (I think it suits me). I really enjoyed the museum, and I'm happy that I was able to see it.
After the museum, we all met up again in the Olympiapark, site of the 1972 Summer Olympics. It was a very interesting park with interesting architure: the buildings are almost tent-looking, very glassy and wavy. There was a huge soccer stadium and lake, and we just hung out there for a while as we waited for the rest of group. Soon we were all reunited, and we were all hungry so we headed to find some dinner. We went to a recommended brewery, although our experience wasn't as good as the previous night's. We didn't get much attention, and we were all squeezed into a tiny table. I ordered a supposedly local fish dish, which didn't turn out anything like I expected, but it was still good, and it was served with an apple-horseradish which turned out to be excellent. One of our friends from the MEMS program, Kristin, had joined us at dinner, since she had just arrived alone in Munich from a trip somewhere else, and after dinner we checked her into her hostel. A small group of us decided to go out once more to check out the festivities going on with the festival, so we headed back out to where we were earlier in the day. There was some kind of a concert and dancing going on, not with a live band but with a DJ, and I must say there was an interesting selection of music. We heard everything from "Hit the Road, Jack," to "I'm Walking on Sunshine" to "We Will Rock You," and a few songs I'm sure could only be from Eurovision. And let me tell you, the Germans loved all these songs, and we were all wondering how they knew them. It was a little bit weird, but very fun. We made our way to the second row, as well, and the crowd was energetic and fun as everyone danced to the 10+ years old music. The DJ stopped playing at 1 am, and that's when we headed back to our hostel to get as much sleep as we could before getting up yet again very early.
We all met downstairs in the hostel at 6:45, checked out, and headed to the Hauptbahnhof. We were able to leave the bulk of our belongings in a locker there, and then we got breakfast and got on a train. Destination: Füssen, about 2 hours away. I slept on the train and was well rested by the time we got there, around 9:30. What is so special about Füssen? It is the small town around Neuschwanstein Castle, otherwise known as the model for Disney's Cinderella Castle and entire Disney logo. From the Bahnhof we took a bus to the base of the mountain, where we collected our pre-reserved tickets for the guided tour of the castle, which is nestled on the side of a mountain. We had three options for going up: we could walk for free, pay for a bus, or pay for a horse-drawn carriage. We decided to walk. Now, supposedly you can get to the top in 40 minutes or 30 at a good pace. We got there in 20 minutes, so I just figure that we are expert walkers. It wasn't a bad walk, but of course it was just a fairly steep incline all the way up. We had an excellent view from the top, but we continued a bit past the castle to get to Mary's Bridge, which spans a waterfall and gives you an excellent view of the castle from behind, and also a great site for pictures. Just our luck that the back of castle was undergoing construction and covered with scaffolding, but we were able to frame our pictures in such a way that it was covered. But the castle and the scenery was just breathtaking, and definitely very Disney-esque. Our tour was scheduled for 11:45, so we headed back down to the castle to wait. The castle had been built over 15 years for a King Ludwig II, but we learned that he only lived there for 100 days before he died in mysterious circumstances. Our tour was very interesting, and the inside of the castle was very different- it was very colorful, and had been built as an homage to the composer Richard Wagner, so inside there were many references to his work. There were also many swans, which was the symbol of the king, and in fact the name Neuschwanstein really means "new swan stone." Interestingly, only certain parts of the castle were ever finished before Ludwig's death, so we skipped entire floors of the castle on the tour. Even the throne had never been installed. In the kings chamber, there were wood carvings that had taken 4 carpenters over a year to do, and there was even a secret door that led to a flushing toilet and running water, which was very rare for the time. Visting the castle was great, and I really learned a lot about it that I had never known. After the tour we hiked back down the mountain, had lunch, and then caught another 2-hour train back to Munich. We still had about an hour to kill before our reserved train back to Mannheim, so we just wandered around for a bit in nearby Marienplatz. We said goodbye to Kristin, who had to stay in Munich by herself for a few more hours, and then finally boarded our train back to Mannheim. In order to have fewer train changes we had booked an IC train, which was still fast but not quite as nice on the inside, but we still had a pleasant journey back home. We arrived back around 8:30, and then went to our dorms to recover from our incredibly busy weekend.
I hope you've enjoyed this book of an entry! I'm still behind, but I know that I will get caught up eventually. I expect in my next entry to cover the events of last week's school week, and then have another for the weekend we just had. I can't believe I'll be home in a few days, the time here has really flown by. I'll write again soon- tomorrow with any luck!
Ich denke, dass mein Deutsch viel besser ist, und ich habe viele neue Wörter gelernt. Ich finde, es ist jetzt für mich leichter, Deutsch zu sprechen und verstehen. Ich habe meine Reisen viel genossen, und ich hoffe, dass ihr mein Blog interessant gefunden habt!
Aufwiederschreiben!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
The Previous School Week
Hallo! In this entry I will update you on everything that happened last school week, which as usual was plenty.
On Monday, we had class at 9 as usual, so there's not much to report. During the break between class and Interaktive Praxis, we went to the campus shop in the Schloss for some Uni Mannheim merchandise. They had plenty to choose from, and I bought a navy-blue university shirt. Almost everyone from my class will have one by the end of the trip, and since most of us will be in Advanced German next semester, I believe we're planning on all wearing them on one day in the fall.
During Interaktive Praxis, we did more preparation for the film party the next day, and Frau Hamann also returned our tests from Thursday. I got an A, but she said she was generous with her grading. I did well on all the grammar and reading comprehension, and even the listening comprehension. My weakest area was the written section, because even during the test I wasn't quite sure of what we were supposed to do. I did manage a 10/10 on the speaking part, which I was especially please with. Overall, I was content with my performance and I could be more certain of what to expect on the next test. After class my friends and I went out to Kaufland for groceries, including supplies for the party, which everyone had contributed a couple euros for. The hardest part was lugging everything back on the Strassenbahn, but we made it somehow.
For Tuesday's Interaktive Praxis, we had our much-anticipated (not) film party. No one not from our class whom we invited came besides Dr. Futterknecht, so it was kind of a lost cause. I did a brief film introduction- the film was supposedly a story made for Mannheim's 400th birthday, which was in 2007. Here was my introduction:
Meine Damen und Herren,
Wilkommen zu unserer Filmvorstellung! Es freut mich sehr, einen passenden Film vorzustellen. Der Film heißt Traumhafte Zeiten- Erzählung einer Stadt. Der Film feiert Mannheims 400. Geburtstag, der 2007 war. Traumhafte Zeiten ist von Michael Kötz, Direktor des Internationalen Filmfestivals Mannheim-Heidelberg und des Festival des deutschen Films. Nach dem Film können wir essen, trinken, und Pantomime spielen. Vielen dank, dass Sie heute gekommen sind, und genießen Sie den Film!
Unfortunately, no one could understand the film and it was not very exciting or well-made. The more enjoyable part of the afternoon was playing charades auf Deutsch. It was quite funny, and some of the words were pretty difficult to act out, for example, "Das Klima," which means climate. "Das Wetter! Die Temperatur! Die Sonne! Der Regen!" were all guesses before someone finally got it right.
On Wednesday was our final organized group trip to Strasbourg. It was originally supposed to be to Strasbourg and Colmar, but a girl from MEMS ended up collapsing in Strasbourg and had to go to the hospital, so Colmar was taken out of the agenda. We arrived in Strasbourg after about 2 hours on the bus, and it was a very beautiful city, I would like to go back! First we went with Dr. Futterknecht to the famous cathedral there, where there is also an astronomical clock. We happened to get there during the lunch hour when the inside was closed, so he allowed us to disperse, to meet back up in a couple hours. Our group decided to find somewhere to eat, and we found a cute crêperie nearby. We ate down in a cellar/basement type area, where curiously the music consisted solely of Barry White, to such a high volume that I had to request for the group that it be turned down. I ate a Galette Niçoise- a galette is similar to a crêpe, but it is thicker and with buckwheat. On the inside there was a kind of cheese, tomato, anchovies, and tuna. It was delicious, as anyone who likes anchovies would have agreed. After the restaurant we had to meet back up with the group, and we went inside the church. One of the interesting things was that all the signs inside were in English, French, and German. It had all the usual church stuff- stained glass, beautiful wood, high ceilings, but the most interesting part was the astronomical clock. It had many dials and decorations that indicated astronomical and calendrical functions, including what is thought to the be the first mechanization of the computation of Easter. Since we were no longer going to Colmar, we had a few hours to kill before we headed back. Our group, having bought pastries from a bakery, ended up just walking around the city and sitting comfortably by the river. We also went to a historic wine cellar in the basement of the Strasbourg hospital, which was quite cool, and the men working there helped us pick out an inexpensive white wine from the region. That was our last event of the day before heading back to the bus for our trip back to Mannheim. I really enjoyed it, and it seemed like a very genuinely French town, even more so than Paris. Paris was so international and touristy that we heard English all the time, but Strasbourg was much more homey. I would almost say that it's like a Mannheim of France, except for being more like Heidelberg in terms of beauty. That night in Mannheim the four of us drank the wine that we had bought, while watching the storm of the century happen outside our windows. It was the hardest rain we had ever seen in Mannheim, and our Studentenwohnheim is such that we hear extremely loud wind gusts and whistling. Our windows were literally opening themselves, and when we got up the next morning there were rain drops everywhere.
Thursday's Interaktive Praxis was held during our Mittagessen, at one of the oldest restaurants in Mannheim. I have unfortunately forgotten the name, but it was a good experience. We all got soup, salad, and fries with our meals- mine was an onion schnitzel dish, which I didn't finish, but was able to take home. Thursday night our group watched a movie online. For some reason we had been talking about The Others, the scary movie with Nicole Kidman, and so after our homework we sat down around the computer and watched. Otherwise, Thursday was not a very busy day, although we had to study for another test on Friday.
So, on Friday was a second chapter test. This one at least in my mind went smoother than the first. All the sections were relatively easy, and it was similar to before- there was listening comprehension, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and a speaking section. Cait and I are almost always partners, and we have been so ever since German I, so we have grown quite accustomed to speaking which each other, which is good. For the Zertifikat Deutsch it is possible also that we will get to choose our speaking partners, and if so we will also be able to be together, which will make that part a little less unpredictable. Otherwise, class that day was uneventful, and in the afternoon we headed off to Munich, but I will save that adventure for my next entry. However, there are a few more miscellaneous things I will mention:
1. Google Analytics- I have installed Google Analytics on my blog, which is a javascript program that allows me to see tons of stuff about who's visiting my blog. I can see how many hits I get on a certain day, how many unique visitors I've had, how long they stayed, where my visitors are from, down to the city (Canada! Sweden! Hong Kong!), and all kinds of interesting stats. My maximum views on a single day was 12, and I've had 135 visits from 26 different visitors, although I only have data from July 14th on. So, if you visit my blog, I'll know!
2. The heat. It has been deathly hot here! It can get quite disgusting, and there is no air conditioning anywhere, including our dorms and classroom, which of course makes it hard to concentrate. Fortunately Cait's and my room was blessed with a fan from the getgo, so we've been using that to the greatest extent possible.
3. My knee- sometime in Paris, I think, I twisted it or something, because once I hit Versailles I had some sharp pains going down stairs- it's in my right leg, sort of the right of my knee and behind. Sometimes it gets stiff and hurts to walk for a few minutes, but I have noticed it especially going down large numbers of stairs. I'm hoping that it will just get better with time, and I already think it's improved since Paris.
4. A victorious Deutsch moment- we were at the Hauptbahnhof, standing by the map of Mannheim, and a couple Germans came by who had just gotten into town, and asked where to find the Jugendherberge. Unfortunately I didn't know, but we were able to carry on a quick conversation about it. They went of the ReiseZentrum to get some information, but meanwhile I found it on the map. They came back, and this time we were able to direct them, even giving them all the Strassenbahn information auf Deutsch. We were quite proud not only to be able to navigate the conversation, but also to give them information about the city we've lived in for this month.
5. The bear- sometime last week a mysterious small yellow-brown stuffed bear appeared on our bathroom shelf. It was quite the source of wonder- whose bear was it? Why was it creepily perched in the bathroom? Had some stranger lost it there? Mel and Yen? No one knew. The eventual conclusion was that the maid had left it in there as some sort of gift, because some MEMS kids had gotten one as well. Still, the bear continues to be a source of horror and humour, as people put it in unexpected places- notably when the boys left it in our bathroom with a huge knife in its hands. It also seems to change location on its own. It is as of now unnamed.
6. The buses. The bus system here has been very nice and predictable, except for only a couple instances of the bus coming early or late. There are various buses that come on our route on a regular basis. Each bus has a particular character and voice giving the stops, and we have given them their proper names:
Little and Big IKEA- These are the yellow and blue buses. They are the newest of all, with nice air conditioning and TV screens illuminating the next few stops (and interestingly, we have learned that Teufelsbrücke, the stop before ours, means of course, Devil's Bridge). Little IKEA is the bus with only one section, and Big IKEA has another half that is attached with an accordion-like bridge.
Red Danger- this bus is one of the oldest and grossest ones, with dark red seats. They're also known to go around the corners most violently, and it's extremely hot and stuffy on the inside. The display indicating the stops is almost always out of order.
Wonder Years- this is also an old bus, but the seats are a golden brown plaid pattern, reminiscent of the 70's. We've gotten this bus many times, especially in the morning on the way to school. No air conditioning, but not as hot as Red Danger.
The Rainbow Connection- we haven't seen this bus in a while, but we're sure it still exists. A middle-aged bus, this one has charter-bus-like seats, which are grey with a sort of rainbow pattern. We generally don't mind riding this bus.
That's about all I can report on for now- look forward to my next entry, in which I will detail our trip to Munich. Tschüss!
On Monday, we had class at 9 as usual, so there's not much to report. During the break between class and Interaktive Praxis, we went to the campus shop in the Schloss for some Uni Mannheim merchandise. They had plenty to choose from, and I bought a navy-blue university shirt. Almost everyone from my class will have one by the end of the trip, and since most of us will be in Advanced German next semester, I believe we're planning on all wearing them on one day in the fall.
During Interaktive Praxis, we did more preparation for the film party the next day, and Frau Hamann also returned our tests from Thursday. I got an A, but she said she was generous with her grading. I did well on all the grammar and reading comprehension, and even the listening comprehension. My weakest area was the written section, because even during the test I wasn't quite sure of what we were supposed to do. I did manage a 10/10 on the speaking part, which I was especially please with. Overall, I was content with my performance and I could be more certain of what to expect on the next test. After class my friends and I went out to Kaufland for groceries, including supplies for the party, which everyone had contributed a couple euros for. The hardest part was lugging everything back on the Strassenbahn, but we made it somehow.
For Tuesday's Interaktive Praxis, we had our much-anticipated (not) film party. No one not from our class whom we invited came besides Dr. Futterknecht, so it was kind of a lost cause. I did a brief film introduction- the film was supposedly a story made for Mannheim's 400th birthday, which was in 2007. Here was my introduction:
Meine Damen und Herren,
Wilkommen zu unserer Filmvorstellung! Es freut mich sehr, einen passenden Film vorzustellen. Der Film heißt Traumhafte Zeiten- Erzählung einer Stadt. Der Film feiert Mannheims 400. Geburtstag, der 2007 war. Traumhafte Zeiten ist von Michael Kötz, Direktor des Internationalen Filmfestivals Mannheim-Heidelberg und des Festival des deutschen Films. Nach dem Film können wir essen, trinken, und Pantomime spielen. Vielen dank, dass Sie heute gekommen sind, und genießen Sie den Film!
Unfortunately, no one could understand the film and it was not very exciting or well-made. The more enjoyable part of the afternoon was playing charades auf Deutsch. It was quite funny, and some of the words were pretty difficult to act out, for example, "Das Klima," which means climate. "Das Wetter! Die Temperatur! Die Sonne! Der Regen!" were all guesses before someone finally got it right.
On Wednesday was our final organized group trip to Strasbourg. It was originally supposed to be to Strasbourg and Colmar, but a girl from MEMS ended up collapsing in Strasbourg and had to go to the hospital, so Colmar was taken out of the agenda. We arrived in Strasbourg after about 2 hours on the bus, and it was a very beautiful city, I would like to go back! First we went with Dr. Futterknecht to the famous cathedral there, where there is also an astronomical clock. We happened to get there during the lunch hour when the inside was closed, so he allowed us to disperse, to meet back up in a couple hours. Our group decided to find somewhere to eat, and we found a cute crêperie nearby. We ate down in a cellar/basement type area, where curiously the music consisted solely of Barry White, to such a high volume that I had to request for the group that it be turned down. I ate a Galette Niçoise- a galette is similar to a crêpe, but it is thicker and with buckwheat. On the inside there was a kind of cheese, tomato, anchovies, and tuna. It was delicious, as anyone who likes anchovies would have agreed. After the restaurant we had to meet back up with the group, and we went inside the church. One of the interesting things was that all the signs inside were in English, French, and German. It had all the usual church stuff- stained glass, beautiful wood, high ceilings, but the most interesting part was the astronomical clock. It had many dials and decorations that indicated astronomical and calendrical functions, including what is thought to the be the first mechanization of the computation of Easter. Since we were no longer going to Colmar, we had a few hours to kill before we headed back. Our group, having bought pastries from a bakery, ended up just walking around the city and sitting comfortably by the river. We also went to a historic wine cellar in the basement of the Strasbourg hospital, which was quite cool, and the men working there helped us pick out an inexpensive white wine from the region. That was our last event of the day before heading back to the bus for our trip back to Mannheim. I really enjoyed it, and it seemed like a very genuinely French town, even more so than Paris. Paris was so international and touristy that we heard English all the time, but Strasbourg was much more homey. I would almost say that it's like a Mannheim of France, except for being more like Heidelberg in terms of beauty. That night in Mannheim the four of us drank the wine that we had bought, while watching the storm of the century happen outside our windows. It was the hardest rain we had ever seen in Mannheim, and our Studentenwohnheim is such that we hear extremely loud wind gusts and whistling. Our windows were literally opening themselves, and when we got up the next morning there were rain drops everywhere.
Thursday's Interaktive Praxis was held during our Mittagessen, at one of the oldest restaurants in Mannheim. I have unfortunately forgotten the name, but it was a good experience. We all got soup, salad, and fries with our meals- mine was an onion schnitzel dish, which I didn't finish, but was able to take home. Thursday night our group watched a movie online. For some reason we had been talking about The Others, the scary movie with Nicole Kidman, and so after our homework we sat down around the computer and watched. Otherwise, Thursday was not a very busy day, although we had to study for another test on Friday.
So, on Friday was a second chapter test. This one at least in my mind went smoother than the first. All the sections were relatively easy, and it was similar to before- there was listening comprehension, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and a speaking section. Cait and I are almost always partners, and we have been so ever since German I, so we have grown quite accustomed to speaking which each other, which is good. For the Zertifikat Deutsch it is possible also that we will get to choose our speaking partners, and if so we will also be able to be together, which will make that part a little less unpredictable. Otherwise, class that day was uneventful, and in the afternoon we headed off to Munich, but I will save that adventure for my next entry. However, there are a few more miscellaneous things I will mention:
1. Google Analytics- I have installed Google Analytics on my blog, which is a javascript program that allows me to see tons of stuff about who's visiting my blog. I can see how many hits I get on a certain day, how many unique visitors I've had, how long they stayed, where my visitors are from, down to the city (Canada! Sweden! Hong Kong!), and all kinds of interesting stats. My maximum views on a single day was 12, and I've had 135 visits from 26 different visitors, although I only have data from July 14th on. So, if you visit my blog, I'll know!
2. The heat. It has been deathly hot here! It can get quite disgusting, and there is no air conditioning anywhere, including our dorms and classroom, which of course makes it hard to concentrate. Fortunately Cait's and my room was blessed with a fan from the getgo, so we've been using that to the greatest extent possible.
3. My knee- sometime in Paris, I think, I twisted it or something, because once I hit Versailles I had some sharp pains going down stairs- it's in my right leg, sort of the right of my knee and behind. Sometimes it gets stiff and hurts to walk for a few minutes, but I have noticed it especially going down large numbers of stairs. I'm hoping that it will just get better with time, and I already think it's improved since Paris.
4. A victorious Deutsch moment- we were at the Hauptbahnhof, standing by the map of Mannheim, and a couple Germans came by who had just gotten into town, and asked where to find the Jugendherberge. Unfortunately I didn't know, but we were able to carry on a quick conversation about it. They went of the ReiseZentrum to get some information, but meanwhile I found it on the map. They came back, and this time we were able to direct them, even giving them all the Strassenbahn information auf Deutsch. We were quite proud not only to be able to navigate the conversation, but also to give them information about the city we've lived in for this month.
5. The bear- sometime last week a mysterious small yellow-brown stuffed bear appeared on our bathroom shelf. It was quite the source of wonder- whose bear was it? Why was it creepily perched in the bathroom? Had some stranger lost it there? Mel and Yen? No one knew. The eventual conclusion was that the maid had left it in there as some sort of gift, because some MEMS kids had gotten one as well. Still, the bear continues to be a source of horror and humour, as people put it in unexpected places- notably when the boys left it in our bathroom with a huge knife in its hands. It also seems to change location on its own. It is as of now unnamed.
6. The buses. The bus system here has been very nice and predictable, except for only a couple instances of the bus coming early or late. There are various buses that come on our route on a regular basis. Each bus has a particular character and voice giving the stops, and we have given them their proper names:
Little and Big IKEA- These are the yellow and blue buses. They are the newest of all, with nice air conditioning and TV screens illuminating the next few stops (and interestingly, we have learned that Teufelsbrücke, the stop before ours, means of course, Devil's Bridge). Little IKEA is the bus with only one section, and Big IKEA has another half that is attached with an accordion-like bridge.
Red Danger- this bus is one of the oldest and grossest ones, with dark red seats. They're also known to go around the corners most violently, and it's extremely hot and stuffy on the inside. The display indicating the stops is almost always out of order.
Wonder Years- this is also an old bus, but the seats are a golden brown plaid pattern, reminiscent of the 70's. We've gotten this bus many times, especially in the morning on the way to school. No air conditioning, but not as hot as Red Danger.
The Rainbow Connection- we haven't seen this bus in a while, but we're sure it still exists. A middle-aged bus, this one has charter-bus-like seats, which are grey with a sort of rainbow pattern. We generally don't mind riding this bus.
That's about all I can report on for now- look forward to my next entry, in which I will detail our trip to Munich. Tschüss!
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