my super long first entry, my first week in France

Now that I’ve finally gotten into a routine to get on the internet regularly, I can put up one of these. Don’t worry muppet, I’m abiding by your rule. One per week :-P This one’s gonna be really long cuz I did A LOT in the past week, just to warn you all.

So I’ve been in France for one week now, and I’ve been living in Aix-en-Provence for 5 days. When I first arrived at Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris, I was greeted by Elyse’s dad. We then waited for elyse’s flight to come in, and headed off to our hotel. Keep in mind that I took a 6:15 flight, which would get into Paris at about 7am Paris time (1am my time). Since it only went to 1am, I could not for my life sleep on the plane. I’m a night owl and I just wasn’t tired. So I watched the in-flight movie Over the Hedge (so cute) and watched a few episodes of CSI and House which I was pretty excited about. I tried to sleep for the last hour but at that point the cabin lights came back on and they were serving breakfast….at 1 in the morning. Whatever. So I figured I would get to at least nap before elyse and I spent the day in Paris with mr raby, but noooooooo. No sleep for me. We walked ALLL over Paris. We visited the Eiffel tower where I took some great pictures, and then my camera ran out of batteries so I depended on Elyse the shutterbug for the rest. We went to Rue de Bac, the Cathedral dedicated to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, and saw the incorruptible body of St. Catherine Laboure which was very cool. Half of you probably don’t know what I mean by incorruptible body or who St. Catherine is but that’s ok. Anyone who knows about my Marian apparition fetish knows how excited I was to go there. We went out to dinner and got back to the hotel around 9 (officially having 36 hours without sleep) and I WOULD have just passed out, but I was waiting for my baby to call…I think I fell asleep a little before I got to talk to him but anyway, ask Mark, I was pretty much beyond comprehension and the conversation only lasted about 10 minutes, mostly because I was incapable of speaking at that point. FINALLY I got to sleep. The next day we walked ALLL over paris again (mr raby looooves to walk!) and we walked through the Louvre and saw some cool paintings and sculptures, like the Mona Lisa and the sculpture of Venus de Milo. We ate lunch in front of Notre Dame where I fed the rest of my bread to the little chicken nugget birds (right babe?) and got attacked by a pigeon…and by attacked I mean it brushed up against my leg and I freaked out. We went into the Paris Opera house, where all the theatre productions (and ballets!) are held in Paris. It’s gorgeous. If that wasn’t enough walking, we also CLIMBED up 300something stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. The view from the top is pretty cool, I have great pictures. We went back to the hotel and rested for a little bit (I passed out on the bed for 45 minutes) and then went out to dinner. I had duck (which is actually soo good) AND foie gras which is liver that you spread on toasted bread. Foie gras wasn’t delicious but it really wasn’t bad at all. Elyse almost burnt down the restaurant with the toaster on our table, that was fun. I also had my first legal glass of wine :) Mr Raby made us order in French so I got to practice a little bit. After dinner we went to see the Eiffel Tower lit up and I took lots of cool pictures of course. We got back to the hotel and I was able to talk to my baby much more coherently this time, and then went to bed.

After 2 days in Paris, mr raby elyse and I started our trek to Aix-en-Provence by car. Elyse and I slept most of the way, and we arrived in a little town called Baune in the afternoon. We walked around, looked at the cathedral there, and had a glass of wine at a café before heading off again. We slept in the car again, and got to the town of Tournus around dinner time. We went out to dinner to a specific place that Mr Raby had been before, and he was determined to have Elyse and I try frog legs. I was EXTREMELY reluctant to do so. I got “gigot d’agneau” which is leg of lamb, and elyse got mussels. I hadn’t had any of the three before. I loved the mussels, the lamb was pretty good, and surprisingly enough, the frog legs seriously tasted like chicken. Mark, you now officially can no longer use your Polish term for “frog-eaters” when talking about the French and say “well you shouldn’t be offended cuz I’m not talking about you” cuz I ate them! Haha. And anyone who comes to a French restaurant with me is being forced to try them as well. They’re actually good. So after our adventurous dining experience, we went back to our hotel, realized we couldn’t get internet even though the hotel said we could which was incredibly disappointing, and went to sleep. Elyse and I stayed up all night talking about how we must be nuts for doing this semester abroad thing lol. So we were a little tired in the morning. Anyway, we started the 3 hour drive to Aix, sleeping halfway, but then Mr Raby made us CALL our host families to tell them when we would be arriving. Ok, I don’t speak enough French to be calling French people on the phone. That was slightly terrifying. But I did it, and I’m pretty sure I butchered the language but the girl on the phone understood me so I guess I did ok. We got to Aix, parked the car in the sketchiest parking garage I’ve ever seen, and walked around a little. We found my address and called to say that I was here and to let me in. we waited for 20 minutes for someone to come downstairs but no one came, and finally Mr Raby called again and found out that IAU had given me the wrong address! I SOOO didn’t need that right then, I was totally freaking out. If Mr Raby hadn’t been with me I might have had a meltdown lol, but I kept it together. We got the right address, and told them we’d come later. We ate lunch, had my first official glass of wine in Aix, and went to Elyse’s house. I’m sure Elyse describes her family and her house in her travel blog so I wont bother, but they’re so cool and her room is awesome. She has internet and I’m soooooo jealous. Totally not cool. She’s like a 25 minute walk from school though and I’m only 10, so I guess it’s what you value more. I think I’d rather have internet.

So we got Elyse settled and then Elyse and Mr Raby came with me to get me settled. My apartment is on the 3rd floor, and my little bedroom is right across the main hall. The apartment itself isn’t tiny but isn’t huge, but it’s very old-fashioned and quaint and very French I guess. The apartment has a little kitchen, a pretty big dining room/living room, 2 little bedrooms for me and the other student living with me, and another big bedroom for Sophie, the 30-year-old daughter of my host mother. My host mother I THINK sleeps on the day bed type thing that’s in the living room, but I seriously don’t even know lol. It’s a little weird. My bedroom has a twin bed that’s a TAD too short for big tall me, a desk in the corner, a big set of shelves opposite my bed, and a tiiiiiiny little closet next to the door. There’s a window next to my desk that overlooks the street, which is cute but it gets noisy at night cuz my house is right in the center of town, and lots of people walk by at night…loudly. Kristen, you’d go nuts lol. My host family consists of Madame Magnan, who is I think in her late 50s or early 60s, and Sophie, who is 30. I also have a housemate named Liz who’s from Massachusetts and goes to Gettysburg College in PA. She’s really cool and we’re def getting to be friends. My host mother is a little strict I guess. She doesn’t want us to take long showers and as most of you know I take showers that are forever long, so that’s something to get used to. She also told us that no one is allowed in our house except us, which I thought was a little weird. She wants us to keep our rooms clean like always, and we’re not supposed to open the shutters of the window even tho I’m dying to have them open and let the breeze come in. So there are some adjustments to make. Her and her daughter are both a little intimidating. It’s def hard going from being in a dorm room and making your own rules and being really casual about everything, to living in someone else’s house with their rules and having to make sure you don’t annoy the hell out of them lol. It’s to be expected in a home-stay I guess, just takes some getting used to.

I have 5 classes, and my first day was yesterday. I have 3 classes that are taught entirely in French: French 313 which is a language class, French Literature, and French Contemporary Civilization. I have two others, an Art History/Literature/Philosophy class (which I’m using to cop out of my visual & performing arts history requirement), and a Painting and Drawing class (which gets me out of my other visual & performing arts requirement). Now keep in mind that I have never drawn or painted before in my LIFE. But it’s a beginners class so I figured I’d try something new. We had our first day today and it was definitely…..interesting. See if you can put two and two together…we drew live models, and I’m in France. Yea, nude. It was a tad awkward. It was a woman tho…don’t worry babe ;) so yea i def suck at drawing, but the professor came over and said I had good lines or something, so I guess that’s good?

Ok so now that I’ve told you all my life story, here’s some info to actually talk to me:
If you want to talk online Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best days. I get out of class at 5 and I go online right afterwards until 7, so that’s 11am-1pm US time. I’m also usually on in the mornings but its like 5am US time so I don’t expect many of you to be up. If you are tho feel free to IM me! And don’t forget about email, facebook messages, and sending me letters! If you want to send me mail address it to:

Cristin Vanderhoof
27 Place de l’Université
13625 Aix-en-Provence, France
Cédex 1

If you want to send a package or something talk to me first cuz there’s all this special stuff you have to do to make sure it gets to me and so that i dont have to pay a ridiculous fee in taxes to pick it up. I miss you all soooooooo much! Please KIT everyone! :-*

<3Cristin

Pictures:
http://photos.yahoo.com/aixtraordinary
http://blogspot.hoofspics.com