Moving Machines

I witnessed the most incredible thing on Friday while on my way to the bank (for the third time and still no bank card, *sigh*). Two trucks were pulled up on the side walk, and coming out of one of the trucks was this big arm, like the kind you see electricians use. Except this one had a platform on the end of it, and was being raised to the top floor of an apartment building, where movers were yelling at each other from below and above on the balcony.

There were also police pulled up and yelling at the guy that looked in charge, maybe they didn't have the paperwork to be doing the move (because really, if something fell off that platform, someone would get iced, you probably have to tape off the whole area). In any case there was alot of yelling in general, and I just stood there staring while a man walked by and his dog peed on the wall next to us.

This photo was the closest thing I could find on the net to show you this weird process of moving people out of their apartments (probably because of the narrow stairs?)

Ohhh the French, everything mustly be slightly more complicated...

Rites of Passage...and library adventures.

I used a blow dryer for the first time today (on purpose, not just to get that last bit of hair dry because it's winter or something) in like six (?), seven (?) years?? I feel like a bit of a poof head, but VERY grown up, bahahaha. It's like up until this moment I was just a kid wearing high heels that were way too big for me, but man, if I have to blow dry my hair then I MUST be a grown up now....
Does that make any sense???

Went to the university library today. It was friggin crazy. You can't just walk around and look at books like a normal library, if you want to look at the literature section you do it through a computer catalogue (and that's AFTER getting a library card, they barely let you into the building without it). Then you reserve a book and then pick it up 45 mins later at a different counter.I took out The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham and The Good Earth by Pearl Buck (they didn't have Imperial Woman, grrr). Fortunately for my literary education there were no romance novels that I could find on catalogue...
The books themselves are something strange as well, they're paper bound. At first I was like, dammnit these must be like from the 60's, and then I read the publication date and they date back to the 1930's!!!! Now I'm nervous I'm going to break something really old and important (they let you keep them for like a month too eh?!). I feel like an idiot, I thought Pearl Buck was a more recent author.
I'm excited to read them but I think I'm going to have to carry them around with me like eggs if I want to go to any cafes or parks to read....wrap it up in a scarf or something. God they're in abysmal quality. The French would probably blame me for the cover coming off too, even though the stupid thing predates World War II (well, good for it, but come on now).

This is what my room looks like....

So as you walk in the sink is on the right hand side, the cupboard on the left, and the bed in front of the big windows. The desk sits on the left hand side off the room, and behind it you can just make out my mini-fridge!!!

At the bar...

The bars here are interesting, it seems like French people like to go to a bar and chat over a glass of wine. This kind of goes against the grain for me, where bar = dancing like a maniac/rockstar/idiot/slut (insert adjective here).
Luckily on Saturday (after numerous attempts to find a bar that even had a dance floor) a half naked French guy wearing a toga costume (some kind of French University initiation) and ROLLERBLADES of all things was trapising around the Cathedrale where we were wandering like lost children (on booze). We then followed this guy half across town as he led us like the pied piper with the tail of his coat flapping behind him as he navigated cobblestones and sewer slats alike (he only almost fell once, and was obviously loaded, so I held him in quite a high esteem). Anyway after hiding behind several parked cars when police went by he took us to a bar that ended up being just down the street from where we'd started out the night.
"C4", a bar where people actually dance (and dance on the bar, ladies, you know I was thinking of you), and I actually thought it was a gay bar for a while (ran into several transvestites and "It's Raining Men" was on and a few guys were walking around - or rather dancing creepily from corners - without shirts on which is how I imagine some gay men might behave???) The gentleman whom I asked seemed affronted at first when I asked him ("Why, do I look gay???") but soon calmed down when he realized how it must look (there were only guys dancing on the bar, it was like they were purposefully trying to keep the girls at bay, and "It's Raining Men" was playing, come on!!!). Anyway I think I found my bar, but apparently I have to get loaded before I go so that I can put up with all the pushing that French people think is legitimate in a bar (I actually managed to say something pissy in french when one chick was practically shoving me out her bigass way, "Franchement!!!" which translates to "REALLY now" but obviously has more effect in french...).
That's my story!

Thoughts on France

Here's a copy of a message I sent some friends when they asked for news about France:

I've gotten lost more times than I can count (and been saved by a sweet little old lady almost as many times), everyone wears scarves here (so I do too to fit in, makes me feel really bohemian, hahah because they're not like wool scarves their the lighter material kind, you know what I mean...).
I got food poisoned last week at a chinese restaurant, and 2 gruelings nights and one doctor's visit later I had a medical bill of 70,00 euros (around $100) and six different boxes of medication....that had to be taken three times a day....and often two pills at each interval...But anyway I'm fine now, though i tell ya that first day I felt perma-high, bad news is I was on six different meds so I can't tell you which ones makes the world all warm and fuzzy ;)
FINALLY have internet in my room (have been shelling out 2 euros a pop everyday to be able to check my email).
Laundry at home was a DREAM compared to here. Its 4 euros to do a wash and dry load (around $6) but the machines are half the size of back home - and we're the lucky ones. People in other residences don't have machines, and have to go to laundromats, where it's 4,50 JUST to wash and then one euro for every ten minutes of dryer (basically 10 euros for a load of laundry, almost 15 canadian). Needless to say alot of us are handwashing things.
I bought a poncho because it was so cold in our residence rooms (for a week they refused to turn on the heat), and I tried to hand wash it and the stupid fucking thing leaked yellow colouring all over the goddamn place and then I tried to hang dry it and it dripped nasty yellow water all over my floor and so I finally ended up hanging it outside the window/putting it in the dryer/lying it on the radiator (it was a combined effort). Anyway I feel like a dork when I wear it but I paid frigging 25 euros for it (miisssstake) so I'm gonna wear it goddammit!!!
Had my first class today and it was easy as pie but choosing classes is going to be a bit of a rat's nest. There's all this "ohh, choose one two hour course or two one hour courses, but they can't be the same as these courses, one of which HAS to be two hours, and at a different school, and the other only one hour..." Anyway I think I navigated it fairly well... It doesn't help that the courses we need to choose are just posted on a bulletin board where everyone crowds around because they need to write all the particulars for each class down (hellooo internet? or even kick it old school and hand out photocopies...).
Hahahaha anyway there's a little taste of the frustrations of France.

The good things:
Fresh bread and pain au chocolat at the local bakery on Saturday mornings.
Listening to the Cathedrale tolling for mass on Sundays (15 minutes).
Having a cell phone, and texting like a madman.
Feeling like I play dress up every morning ("how do I make this look more french?")
Walking everywhere (also a bad thing, depending on the day/weather)
3 euro tarte flambee during happy hour at the "Brasseur"
2,90 bottles of Chardonnay
etc......

GOOD NEWS!!!

I made the proper tier for my placement test (DAEF, the second highest offered at l'Institut) ... despite massive gastronomic issues. Hurrah!!!

Ughhh

Sorry I've been out of touch for the last few days, both with emails, facebook, and my poor blog. As it so happens, I have a fairly good reason - I got food poisoning on Sunday night, and have been alternating between being curled in a ball and emptying the entire (never has the word "entirety" ever been so aptly used) contents of my body.
Its such a cliche too, I was eating Chinese food. What really gets me though; is that all I had was a bowl of soup, meanwhile, neither of the other girls I went to dinner with got sick - and one of them had spicy DUCK! Grrr.
Anyway I thought I was going to die last night, I had to roll out of bed every hour or so to be sick (I never realized the human body held so much, I mean, after the first few times I thought I'd be running on empty, but my stomach had some kind of hidden reserves...). It didn't help that I was having weird, fevered dreams about war and fighting (I'm reading a book about the First World War, which is probably where that came from).
This morning even getting dressed was a struggle, and I shuffled my way over to the doctor's office down the street. She prescribed me SIX different medications, ranging from antibiotic, something for stomach spasms, a blocker upper if-you-know-what-I-mean, something for upset stomachs, etc. etc. Basically the only reason I'm able to type this right now is thanks to those babies, because up until a few hours ago climbing the stairs to my room made me nauseous as hell (I actually had to urgently ask the guy at the pharmacy if they had a washroom halfway through getting my order because I was breaking out into a cold sweat and thought I was going to vomit all over his counter, hhahaha at least he understood my urgency, what with filling out my massive drug order of intestinatia..... I made that word up).
My diet for the next few days will consist of crackers and apple sauce (which is apparently good for this sort of thing). I'm also allowed rice and cooked carrots (another surprise), and lots and lots of pills.
Anyway don't feel bad for me, I just wanted y'all to know why I've been m.i.a for the past few days - oh, and I wrote my placement test during all this, I think I did okay, despite it all.
Miss everybody!!!!

Germany

Well!

Everything was going fine on the 6th: I had made it to the 'Gare Central' in Strasbourg for my early morning train, I found the right platform, got on the right car, sat in the designated seat. (and was mildly disgusted by the fat German guy who sat across the aisle from me, who proceeded to fall asleep and drool all over himself during the ride...).

When I got to Karlsruhe, however, for my 'connexion', I had to buy my ticket for the second half of the trip to Hannover, and started to panic when I found myself outside the train station, and unable to read any of the signs - my train was leaving in half an hour.

By the time I managed to get my bearings (and find my way back into the station, which was harder than it sounds) it was already 10h45 (my train was supposed to arrive at 10h51). I was practically pissing myself in line to buy the ticket - while an elderly man with no teeth smiled up at me and tried to crack some jokes in English. At exactly 10h51 I managed to purchase my ticket, and booked it to the platform, neatly catching my train, haHA!

When I arrived at the station in Hannover, I spotted Ute right away, hahaah she was standing on the platform waving a little Canadian flag, while Axel stood down the platform a ways, searching the crowd. I had been a little nervous about seeing them again after so many years had passed, but it wasn't awkward at all.

Post to be continued......

The First Few Days

Waaargh! A week since my last blog. So much has happened. Here's a speed through version of the past few days:
Sept.3-4 Flying to Strasbourg!!! I finally understand why so many people get pissed off with Air Canada, because Air France was AMAZING!!! They served dinner (roasted beef, vegetables and potatoes in gravy, with half a small - and ridiculously fresh - baguette, a hunk of Camembert cheese, a piece of chocolate cake oh yeah AND a couscous salad. They would have served me a glass of wine but for some reason I got all flustered (as if they'd ID me, and I'm 20, so it really doesn't make sense at all...) and got orange juice (?!) instead.
As we closed in on Paris, I thought, Man, I sure could use a coffee right now. Sure enough, a polite young flight attendant (I thought it was weird, and perhaps this is inherantly sexist of me, that almost all the flight attendants were men) bustles by with a cart laden with coffee, yogurt, and I don't remember what else, asking "Et pour vous, mademoiselle?".
I practically purred. FINALLY, a country that understands me - no more of that "ma'm" shit.

The next two days were spent wandering in (or rather more aptly, repeatedly losing myself in) Strasbourg. Everything is super expensive there (they wanted me to pay 40euros for a towel? uh-uh, I'd rather air dry than be pissed off every time I take a shower).

For the first little while there was also a kind of awkward puzzling of what my behaviour should be in residence. For example, what is the ettiquette about the washroom? (Sidenote: here they call it a water closet, or WC, and for good reason, because there is just enough room to maneuver yourself onto the toilet, and wash your hands, and can just about press your face on the window of the washroom while popping a squat, so to speak.). Anyway, am I supposed to carry my TP and soap into the washroom with me every time I go? or hide a bit of it in my pocket and wash my hands in my room...? (Which I will post pictures of as soon as I get the chance). Also, is it considered bad form to wear one's towel to the shower? (I'm not a flagrant bearer of goods, but really, there's no where to put clothes in the shower room - You guessed it, room with one shower - and there is NO way I'm buying a house coat, screw that, I could get a sweet pair of sexy boots for that kind of money!!!)
More later, I've gotta run. Update you on Germany soon!!!
xoxo Sarah

P.S The photos are as follows - Wally on the bed in my room, the view from my window (!) and a pic from me from the first few days... More to come!

Scripted Conversations

You know how when you're walking down a hall and someone you know says,
"Hey! How are you?"
and then keeps walking without waiting for the response, because they know you're just going to say something like,
"Not too bad, how are you?".....?
I've noticed that when you're preparing for a big trip, that seems to happen alot. Except instead of Hihowareyou it's
"So are you nervous?"
and then before I can even really give my full answer (which is obviously, "Yeah, I'm practically pooping my pants....") they're already out with -
"Oh, you're going to have sooo much fun, you'll be fine."
and then really, what can I say to that? It just kind of kills the conversation.

I appreciate the interest, and the concern, of course! It's just kind of redundant, you know? Because obviously I know I'll be fine (because if I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown overseas I wouldn't go right?) and of course I'll have fun, because....well, shit I'm going to France.
Dinnah time! Later gaters.

Nov.24, 2008
I wanted to add the lyrics of a song that I felt at the time really applied to how I felt, but that at the time was afraid of how people would react when they read it. Now its buried in the blog (muhahaha) and I want to remember how those words made me feel. Plus the people it applies to never read this thing.

"Head underwater,
and they tell me to breathe easy for a while,

The breathing gets harder,
even I know that..."

Love Song by Sara Bareilles