Tour de France.

Blogging has been down for the month of July. Sorry folks. In my defense, I've been busy with class, friends, and other culturally frenchy things.

Today marked the end of the Tour de France in Pau, which was definitely the most exciting time I've experienced in the city of Pau so far. Tuesday after class I went downtown with some friends, and watched the cyclists finish. I read online that it's the 100th anniversary of the Tour de France visiting Pau, but I'm not completely sure this is true. Anyway, I spent way too much money on t-shirts and souvenirs for my family... but it's the Tour de France.

This week when someone asked me if I was a tourist passing through I was able to say no, I live here as a student for June and July. My friends and I felt legit. We're practically Paulois.

Last night I witnessed the most bizarre parade. In the states, you get candy. In Pau, you get female condoms and people dressed in post apocalyptic gear. There were two: one in the late afternoon/evening and another one at night. The last parade snaked through the main parts of downtown and ended in the main square, Place Clemenceau. People on the floats started yelling "Roi au velo," or king of the bikes. Felt like I was joining a cult. These people are crazy over their cyclying. Anyway, they ended in the square and they hoisted this huge metal ball made of bikes, which a person had been walking in during the parade, and it resembled a hamster ball, with two bikes and bikers to go with in front of it. As they were cycling in the air, fireworks went off. It was pretty grand and ridiculous but nonetheless awesome to watch. There was inclined makeshift stage that led up into the air and people dressed up as cyclists climbed over each other in order to be "first." The two people in the front had a huge sign that said "arrivee."

Teaser Pics. More later!

Aujourd'hui.

Today was the first day of classes. I knew I was going to get placed into a lower class than last time. Yesterday we took the placement test, and I got SO nervous during the oral part. The woman I had was stern, and I kept stammering. Whoops.

So I got placed into Group 3. Last month I was in group 4. Trying not to get to bent out of shape about it. I'm here to learn french, and it doesn't matter which group I'm in as long as I'm still learning. There's a lot more diversity in my classes this time around, which is awesome. There are people from South Korea, one from Ghana and Argentina, Spain, China, Sweden. All in my class! Spanish to french is the hardest accent for me to understand. They pronounce everything differently. All of the swedish girls look the same. It's kinda creepy. Tall, thin, and blonde.

Today we went over adjectives, and it seemed like people struggled a little bit. If it doesn't get more interesting I'm going to see if I can get bumped up. I'm not very good at communicating and expressing myself orally, but I can read and write. Or at least I thought I could..

Speaking is getting easier and easier. I just have to stop being so shy and put myself out there. I'm in France and should make as many mistakes as possible. More mistakes I make here, the less I'll make aux etats-unis.

Today was sooo hot and humid. Feels like I haven't even left Iowa! Saturday I'm going to Saint Jean de Luz, which is on the coast, and I'm super pumped. I get to see Nate in Bordeaux a week from tomorrow for my birthday weekend. This month is gonna be a good one. I'll be home before you all know it on July 28th :)

P.S. Last night I made dinner for two of my friends in the dorms. One of them is sick with what I think I had at the beginning. I remember how awful I felt, so I made him homemade chicken noodle soup and another friend assisted me. We also bought some brie cheese for dessert, which was SO good. Also made avocado boats as an appetizer. Spiffy stuff to with chicken noodle soup huh? Chicken noodle soup is a cure all. My friend felt better already today a cause de moi. Not to give myself too much credit or anything.. It is my mom's recipe! She can cook!!... sometimes.

A Paris. Day Two,

Started off day two bright and early. Around 7:30ish. Free continental breakfast = lots of baguette and nutella pour moi! Definitely not counting calories here. We commenced with a tour of Sainte Chappelle, a beautiful church with amazing stained glass windows, and the coniergie where prisoners were kept. Robespierre was kept and died there as well.

Before entering Sainte Chappelle, we all had to go through security. I forgot I had a wine opener in my purse, and that caused a small commotion with the scary french guards. Oops! Luckily the man I had to check the opener with just laughed at me. Silly American.

Before these sites, we attempted to visit Notre Dame. Ambivalently we couldn't go in because there was something going on with a cardinal. It was cool to see so many people outside, but I really wanted to see the inside! Anyway, there were so many people there for it that they overflowed outside, and when they chanted their catholic stuff (for lack of a better word), it was haunting with so many people! The directors of USAC were with us, and they told us they had never seen anything like it before.

These sites were in the morning. We ate lunch wherever we felt like going, and after that we took the metro to the opera house. I was blown away. I was expecting the opera house to be very stunning, but the place ended up being one of my faves (second only the centre pompidou, museum of modern art). I'll post some pics at the end of the post. The phantom of the opera was inspired by this opera house. There really is an underground lack under the opera house. The story was inspired when a chandelier fell because they blamed a phantom. Ta-da. There's also a giant ballroom there, which the ballroom for Beauty and the Beast was inspired from. You'll see the resemblance in the pics.

After all these, I was pooped. A friend and I stayed behind for a little shopping and wearily went back to the hotel for some much needed rest. It was hot, and the metro is like 10 degrees hotter than the outside with little to no air circulation. I felt like I had at least a couple of layers of sweat on me at the end of everyday. Gross.

Paris. Day one.

Sorry again folks. It's been busy!

What a weekend, sejour a Paris. I don't know where to start. We did so much stuff.

I'll commence with Friday. I had to wake up at around 5 am, bright and early. Marched over to a friend's house down the street to mooch off her prepaid taxi. Driver faire la bised (kissing the cheek thing the french do) us, which was weird on so many levels. One, he's a taxi driver and not familiar? Two, it was 5:45 in the morning. Ungodly hour. Three, we're americans. He knows we don't do that. After the incident and our confusion he remarked "It's very freeensh." Just like that. In english.

Train left around 6:15 am. Arrived at around 11:45 pm. Had free time until four pm. My roomie and I for the trip wandered around our little slice of Paris near the hotel. There was a fresh market literally right down the street from the hotel. We purchased baguette, cheese, cherries (my fave!!!) and cold, fresh white wine for lunch and picniced on a bench. The wine place there was so, so good. We bought a 5 euro wine from Nantes, and it was amazing.

After lunch and wandering around, we met up with USAC at four to tour around the latin quarter. Saw le Jardin de Luxembourg and the Sorbonne. Roomie and I had delicious sushi and it was moins cher. I tried bright red lipstick for the first time in awhile. Red is becoming my new favorite color. Need to get mehself some.

la fin de juin.

Sorry friends. It’s been awhile. Relationship with my internet here has been love/hate since my host brother has been home. While my host mom doesn’t use the computer much (which I think is a generational thing), the host brother can’t get enough of it. Unfortunately, if someone else uses the internet, I get booted. Host brother keeps adding reasons for him to be on poo poo list.

Anyway, last weekend was the trip to the Pyrenees mountains. Lazily, I decided to skip and slept in until noon instead. In my defense, it rained literally every day of last week and was pretty cold. Because I've just gotten over a bad bug, I figured it would be best to stay dry indoors and sleep in. I'm a little bummed about missing out on the experience. I have yet to see mountains in real life! There's another mountain trip excursion next month, so I'll get to go then.

Last week the USAC group here went to a cheese tasting. Amazing. One of my favorite cheeses here is definitely Brie. It's pretty mild and creamy. Also, french people don't understand my name. I figured Bree would be easier to say than Breona with their accents, ya know? I met a friend's host mom on Saturday night, and she had two drunken friends over. They were doing shots of vodka and drinking wine, and they were very, very amusing. One of the men couldn't remember my name, and at one point told me Bree sounded like Chinese. He then mumbled some chinese-related syllables: ming, ping, mei etc...

Tomorrow is my final for the month of June, and I can't believe how fast it has gone! I say goodbye to some good friends tomorrow because they aren't going on the Paris tour. Saying bye always sucks, but I knew this wouldn't last forever. Nothing does. I'm excited to meet new people. Always gotta look forward, ya know?

Speaking of the Paris tour, I leave bright and early Friday morning at 6 am. As in, I have to be at the train station and ready to go by 6 am. Yuck!! Paris was my first city choice for study abroad. Originally I wanted to study there for a whole semester, but I'm satisfied with where I am in little, quaint Pau. We'll see if the stereotypes are true: love in the streets, accordions, the eiffel tower (which can't be untrue but expectations will be questioned). I don't know where my expectations are. Excitement is mixed in there somewhere, but I've heard the city is smelly and dirty. If I go in with a meh attitude I'll be impressed, so that's the plan.

Wrap up of first session: I've realized and accepted I won't be fluent after two months in France, and now that I think about it, that expectation was unreal. Two months? That's nothing in the span of a lifetime. I am, however, less shy when speaking french. I'm still shy, but I'm at least willing to speak now. More than I can say for last semester in my french classes. Shyness in french is a work in progress. I'm trying to get confidence, so I'll be willing to make mistakes without caring. If I make the mistakes here, then I'll make less mistakes in classes at home. I've been studying french for 5 or 6ish years now. I know enough to speak and communicate. My host mom and I are getting a lot better at communicating. Less thought is required to form sentences. Sometimes I still have to stop and think about it when I'm using indirect and direct objects and where they go. Especially in the passe compose etc. Whew.

A friend and I discussed today how frustrating it is when you get a mental block. Flowing along in french and all of a sudden, you have this huge, nasty English word behind your eyelids and you can't look passed it. Seriously one of the most frustrating things that has happened here... Minus the alarm.

Oh! I know I'm being ADD, but my host brother set off the alarm at 2 am the other night!! Muaha. At least it wasn't me :).

Frustrating = taxis. I was too lazy to walk home Friday night after hanging out with some friends, so I called a taxi. When we arrived at my house, I asked him if he had change for a 50 euro. He said no. I froze, feeling all of the muscles in my legs tense. I had no idea what to do because I wasn't going to give him a 50 euro for a 12 euro cab ride, so I just sat there. Kinda felt like bawling, but I pretended to be firm in my decision and remained seated with the 50 in my hand. I wasn't joking. I had no other change on me. After a few minutes of awkwardness (and after realizing I wasn't a pansy American/woman who had money to blow), he threw two 40's at me and that was the end of it. Jerk.

2 of cheese tasting.
1 of the house

Brie (comme le fromage).

Today has been relaxing.

I adore the weather here. Last few days have been chilly (but not too cold) and rainy. When I return to the states in July, I'll be in weather shock from the hot humidity of Iowa.

I walked downtown after class today with a friend. I led the way, and we didn't get lost! As in I actually knew where I was going! My friend, Cassandra, wanted to visit one of her french friends who works at a salon, and she got turned around trying to find it. Grabbing the map from her, I figured out where we were and found the little hair salon. The women working there cracked me up. There were two middle aged women, and they reminded me so much of my mom and her friends: loud and giggly, like teenagers. One of them even told me "dans mon coeur, j'ai 20 ans!" (In my heart, I'm 20 years old!) Their accents are little difficult to understand. Southern and Parisian accents really are different, and I think my host mom's southern accent gave me difficulties in the beginning.

We hung out at the salon for awhile and drank coffee with the ladies. Cassandra's friend, Muriel, was super cute and tiny with a short bob hair cut. She's going to cut my hair next Tuesday! My first french haircut! The experience will be interesting because she doesn't know much english, her accent is a little different, and I don't know any vocab for haircuts. Hopefully I'll like it.

Tonight for dinner, I bought some fresh, yes fresh, smoked salmon and ate it with rice. I peppered the salmon a smidgen, and it was so yummy. Fresh here has an entirely different connotation for me than fresh in the states. How will I ever be able to go back to my land locked Iowa, which lacks all the fresh fruit and seafood I get to eat here? And bread. Still eating it with about every meal. Haven't gained any weight. People in the states are crazy for trying to cut carbs. Europeans know what they're doing: small breakfast, bigger lunch, and a large dinner. No snacks and exercise. Glass of red wine every night. Here, cheese, fruit, and yogurt are considered dessert. I'm eating raspberries as I write this with a glass of red wine from Bordeaux that I bought for 3 euros.

Cheese tasting tomorrow for the USAC kids. I'm pumped.

p.s. French people are so confused when I tell them my name. I've been going by Bree here because most french people really struggle with Breona. I'm assuming that name isn't one they hear everday, and I seriously think their first thought is cheese: why would anyone name their child after cheese? That would be like calling someone Roquefort.