Paris!

We are leaving for Paris tomorrow morning! I'm incredibly excited. We won't get back until Tuesday, which is a "jour ferie", or national holiday. Unfortunately, I won't miss any classes.

I am going to be the dorkiest, most enthusiastic Parisian tourist ever, and I can't wait to see everything. Unfortunately, we are not riding the TGV, we are riding the slow, stupid train that is actually only 30 minutes longer than the TGV. And I really hope it's a train with cabins, like in Harry Potter. Except I don't even think those exist in real life. But it would be cool. And Annie and I are going to do some major planning. We actually have a good amount of free time away from Dickinson planned activities, so I want to use it wisely. Especially because with Dickinson, we don't hit the major tourist things (ie. Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysees, Notre Dame), and I definitely want to see those. And take 8000 pictures. :-) And Annie and I bought a sachet for the train, which is the greatest invention from French bakeries since the pastries themselves. It's a bag full of like, day-old pastries which still taste delicious, and it's only 3.50 euros. Amaaaaazing. So I have all that to look forward to tomorrow, which is a lot. ;-)

Fancy a ruck?

I don't really know what that means, but it's related to rugby, and we went to a rugby game on Saturday! It was really fun! And we were told that we had really bad seats, but we were right on one of the "endzone" lines! So we had a really good view whenever they were down in that end, and for the 2nd half, it was a lot because the Toulouse team is awesome. They are the European champs or something. We played Wales, and pretty much kicked their butt. I think the final score was like 55-21 or something. Yaaaaay! And the ambiance is pretty much like any American football or soccer game: really loud, lots of painted faces, and crazy! I really want to buy a Stade Toulousian jersey, but they are really expensive! Maybe as a birthday present to myself. But I actually really did end up enjoying the game, because my dad (former rugby player!) gave me a great run down of the rules and players and stuff. Thanks Dad! ;-) The Toulouse team is red.

After the game, we went out to dinner at a Chilean restaurant and I got....chili! And it was delicious. And we walked over the Pont Neuf to get there, so we saw the Garonne River at night, and it was beautiful! You could see all the bridges lit up, and I liked it a lot. In other news, I'm sick again. I think the germs in France are really strong. Yuck! And we're going to Paris this Friday and I'm soooo excited because I've never been! I'm going through guidebooks and everything to get good ideas where to go. Yay!

Sup'Aero

Sooo the gala fete craziness that was the Gala Sup'Aero last night was made ten million times more crazy by the confusing events that surrounded it. So we are all at Kat's, hanging out, etc. and we had planned to get the 12:30 shuttle to Sup'Aero. Then the shuttle bus left early. So after that, it was a frenzy of taking the metro to try and catch the shuttle at the next stop (didn't work), taking the metro back to Esquirol and taking a taxi to Sup'Aero. But along the way, we lost like, half our group, and Annie, Kat, and Shana ended up not even going! Which was really sad because Annie and I had gotten ready together, and we looked really pretty. ;-) We ended up having a good time at the Gala, they had 12 bars with different themes, like Oriental, Disco, Karaoke, etc. and they did a really good job of transforming the school (I mean, I guess it was transformed....I've never been there, so maybe they always have rockin classrooms like that...) So we danced for a while, and then came back home. And the other separated group had a good time too, so everything turned out fine! Harmony, Ellen and I had a great time dancing, and it was really super hot in there!

In other news, my host parents went out last night, so one of these two brothers that often babysit for them came over, and had his little girlfriend over without asking, AND smoked in the garden and left butts everywhere. Manon had said something to Valerie, like "Mommy, I saw a girl in our house", but Val just assumed that Manon had seen Annie and I all dressed up, and didn't recognize us or something. But then, I felt like Valerie's little spy, because she was asking me all these questions to verify what actually happened, and I gave her the goods. Obviously I saw everything, seeing as how I was at home until 10:30 when we went to Kat's house! So guess what, little french babysitting boy? You aren't coming over anymore, and I feel that my information was really what tipped Valerie off the edge. And also, I feel like Val and I had a good bonding moment, and we said that this kid was really dumb, and if he had just waited until Annie and I left, everything would have been fine! You can just call me Nancy Drew.

Also, Valerie is obsessed with this Avian flu thing, which I really don't know much about because I'm really bad at following the news, but she is always like "Caitlin, make sure you don't touch bird feathers in the garden!" "Caitlin, tell your boyfriend not to eat chicken!", and today I told them that Jason said it wasn't a big deal, and even his professor wasn't worried. And she said something like "oh...well he's actually over there, and it's not a big deal, so we maybe shouldn't worry so much!" And does she really think that I would be like "Oh, that's a pretty pigeon feather, I'm just gonna go ahead and pick that up as a souvenir of Toulouse!" Hahahaha. So don't anyone be expecting a bird feather present.

My feet have a wild life when I'm not looking

Lack of updates = Caitlin had a fairly boring week. On Thursday, we had the opening reception at Dickinson, which was fun, because all the host families came and professors and other Dickinson-affiliated people, and everyone got to meet everyone else. My host family didn’t come because Gauthier was out of town and Valérie didn’t want to have to bring the girls. But I did see one of my professors from the ISTR (Catholic Institute), and I made somewhat retarded conversation with him…but oh well, maybe I’ll get a good grade now! Also, for lack of a better picture for the week, I wore these really uncomfortable shoes to the Dickinson reception, and walked half a mile to the center in the rain, and my feet now look like they got in a knife fight or something. Hahaha, but also ouch!


And I also met my new “boss” type person for this English class that I’m teaching in a suburb of Toulouse, called Pechabou (it sounds sort of like “peek-a-boo”, and I like it). Yes, I am teaching an English class (with Kat, a Dickinson student who is studying in Toulouse for the 2nd year in a row), and no, I do not have any experience with being a teacher of any subject. But I figure I speak English natively, so I have a leg-up on any random person they could have gotten! But they pay is fairly sweeeeeet, and Kat and I are switching off weeks, so I can handle getting up early on Saturdays twice a month for a little extra pocket money! We just had our first class today and it was so much fun! I was really nervous going into it, but the kids are really sweet (there were only 4 of them today, and probably 6 will be coming on a regular basis), and they already had a solid basis of the “hi, how are you, my name is” kind of stuff, which Kat and I didn’t know would be the case. We heard they had never learned English before! So luckily we asked at the beginning of the class what English words/phrases they knew, and they rattled off a whole bunch, including some funny and random ones like “Stop it!” and “Give me!” All in all, a positive first day, and I’m not really that nervous for next time!
Tonight we have big plans. There is a “gala” at an engineering school called Sup’Aero that is apparently a huuuuuuge deal. Like, budget of 85,000 euros kind of big deal. And it’s a dress up thing, so automatically I’m there. There is an entrance fee of 16 euros, but Dickinson is graciously paying for whoever wants to go, because we have a good relationship with Sup’Aero, and Dickinson students do internships there every year (this year it’s Annie and Christine!) So I’m pretty psyched for that tonight, I’ll have to update and tell how it went!

Fete St. Michel

For the past 3 weeks there has been the "Fete St. Michel" in the gardens which are right near my house. Basically, this "fete" which is commemorating a saint is actually a huge carnival with A LOT of carnies and other somewhat unfavorable people in the park. It makes the parks almost impossible to walk around in, due to the crowds and packed-in concession stands and rides. And also, it's really ugly. Nevertheless, I love carnivals and it was fun to do some quality people watching. And apparently in France people don't really care about safety, because Annie and I saw this one ride that was like a twirly circle that went on its side and up and down and stuff. Okay fine...until we saw that there was nothing even resembling any sort of safety belt strapping the people in! I guess it was part of the fun, flirting with possible death and all. But we really could not stop looking, because it seemed like at any moment someone was going to fly right out of it! People were bouncing, and sliding on the seats, and everything. Crazy. So for our ONE carnival ride (they were ridiculously expensive, and there was no sort of day-passes or anything), Annie and I chose the much more sedate Ferris Wheel. It was enjoyable and we got some cool views of Toulouse from the top.

And this was the last weekend of the carnival, so now we can enjoy the gardens again without hearing a lot of blasting American music coming from the rides! Though I was fairly psyched to hear a little Black Eyed Peas today.

Something that I really enjoy in France: Frommage Blanc and Natural Yogurt. I don't actually know what Frommage Blanc is (literal translation: white cheese), but it is very similar to yogurt, and natural yogurt is just yogurt without any flavoring. And both are absolutely delicious when you put a lot of sugar in them. My host sisters eat it all the time, and I tried it the other night, and it's so good! So now every night after dinner, me and my two host sisters have some frommage blanc or natural yogurt while my host parents look on. And I feel like a 5 year old, but I like it. :-)

For all of you who are interested in the Tour de France: I forgot to mention yesterday that Albi was the starting place of Stage 21 this past summer. I wish I had known earlier (I ended up just seeing a poster in a shop window yesterday), but I don't know what I would have done, go looked at some road that Lance rode on or something? Nonetheless, I think it's incredibly cool and I love Lance. ;-)

I want a big French hat!

Today was our excursion to Albi, a nearby town. I realized I’ve never put a map on here, and I thought that would be fun, and Jason did it too, so look at this (Toulouse and other mentioned towns are in the "Midi-Pyrenees" region, waaaaay down south--note, enlarge the map to see it better). So we took the train, which was fun because I like trains, and the trains here are really nice and fast. We went into some sort of underground tunnel and for some reason, the pressure changed so much that all our ears went crazy. And then we resurfaced and everything was fine again. But it was weird! So then in Albi, before our first tour, we went to these gardens at the Palais de la Berbie, which has these great gardens overlooking the Tarn River. I took some pretty great shots, because the light was absolutely breathtaking at that time in the morning (around 9:45 am). Then we went on a tour of the Henri Toulouse-Lautrec museum, who is a painter very famous for a couple of his posters, and less famous for most of his other work. I’m positive you’ve seen this poster and this poster too.
And Toulouse-Lautrec was born in Albi, so they like him a lot there. The building the museum was housed in was kind of cool in its own right, because it’s actually partly in the Palais de la Berbie. And seeing those famous posters up close was fairly cool, except they didn’t have the cat one at this museum, I guess they had to share it with some other museum? So after that, we had a long break for lunch and we just walked around and I was in pain because my Pumas that I wear everyday decided to be like “oh hey, here are some blisters”. But I dealt!

And then we had another tour after lunch, of the St. Cecile Cathedral and the old part of Albi. But there was a wedding in the church, so we had to stall a little and look at some kind of boring things in old Albi before we got to go into the cathedral. But we did see the house where Toulouse-Lautrec was born, so that was neato.

Then we finally got to go in the Cathedral, and it was amazing. This cathedral is less like a church, and more like the most fortified fortress ever. It was built in the 14th century; I guess when all that crazy Crusade stuff was going on. So outside it’s fairly intimidating, and inside it’s beautiful. And the fact that there was a wedding just made it perfect, because during our whole tour there was beautiful singing and the organ and trumpets were playing. It was very dreamy, and then all the girls in our group swooned when we got a peek at the bride and groom. They were so young! And they had these adorable little kids in the wedding party, and these beautiful palm/white ribbon flower arrangments on each of the pews. And I was creepy and took a program that someone left in a pew. Sidenote: the French have a crazy custom at grand weddings, which is that all the women wear these crazy, fancy hats. Like, we’re talking hats…complete with feathers, spangles, dangly things and anything else that one would normally think should be avoided in all outfits. But somehow, it all works and makes everyone look really fashionable and amazing. Moral of the story: I’m going to have big crazy hats at my wedding and be really French.

Note: A french fashion statement thing that I'm not really into is the faux-hawk. I mean....what? When was that ever even popular in America, cause I think it was never, and therefore France should take a hint. I rode the bus home tonight with about 5 kids all sporting a faux-hawk, and I felt like saying "your hair looks stupid, and dirty because of all the gel you put in it to make it stand unnaturally on end." Hahaha, next time I'll snap a few photos. ;-)

Organ in St. Cecile (during the wedding there was a man in the organ loft playing trumpet...absolutely amazing)

Amazing ceiling in St. Cecile

Me, on the bridge over the Tarn

Annie and me, overlooking the Tarn River

grape vine-covered walkway in the gardens....very Italian looking

Gardens at le Palais de la Berbie, modeled after the gardens of Versailles

The incredibly immense St. Cecile Cathedral in Albi. It was built like a fortress, and I would feel very safe in there if I was suddenly needing to hide from some heathens

Les greves

Okay, so new French experience of the day: Les greves, or strikes that basically immobialize the city. They are announced ahead of time, to give people time to plan otherwise, I guess? But we were told through an email from the Dson Center that the Tisseo (bus/metro company) was striking, so plan extra time to get places, etc. Apparently, a lot of municipally-run things also strike in show of solidarity. For example: our university classes were cancelled, post offices and libraries were closed. So that was kind of nice, no classes for Caitlin today! But we really needed to do research at the big city library, so that part was kind of a pain. And then when Annie and I were walking towards Rue du Metz, a major road that runs across the city, the whole road was closed and huge crowds of people were marching down the road carrying signs and chanting and singing. And apparently strikes are a big part of life in France, and people kind of just deal with them like they are no big deal.





And also today, my host sister Alix, who is 7, asked me if I knew what Christmas was. Like I come from some crazy nation, not like the United States.

And for our project on the gardens of Toulouse, Annie and I "interviewed" my host sisters, because they always go to the gardens to play, and we thought it would be a cute angle to take. And it was. Alix, always the little unintentional comedian, when asked what her favorite part of the Jardin des Plantes was, responded: "The plants". Hilarious. ;-)

Cute old people feeding birds in the park! And nuns in the background! (This counts as research for our project....definitely)

Crepes galore

Ohhh, and suddenly it's Sunday night, but I don't really mind because I don't have classes on Mondays! So Mondays are actually made even worse, because I have class on Tuesday hanging over my head all day....but oh well. P.S. as we speak, my family is giving me one crepe after another. Could I be any more French?

So this weekend was fun. Went to Bodega Bodega and Le Frigo on Friday night. We all felt like we were holding court because Annie, Christine, and I were sitting on this table and a steady stream of guys kept approaching us. Apparently guys like girls that speak english? Not really sure, but we got many drinks bought for us, so it worked out well. And Bodega Bodega plays American music, so you gotta love that. None of that crappy house music, of which I am not a fan. However, funny moment: Christine and I were dancing at Le Frigo and it was this retarded techno song that was like "I want you, I want you, I want you" over and over again. And then this french guy dances by and yells "I WANT YOU!" in our faces. And we were like "Do you even know what that means?" Then on Saturday we wanted to go to this free concert of this guy who is apparently like Moby, but then it started raining, and the concert was outside, and I wasn't really in the mood to subject myself to that. So we ended up hooking up with some other Dickinson kids and going out to the slowest Chinese restaurant on the planet. Like, it was laughably slow. Customer service isn't really that big in France in general. Cashier lines are long, store employees are unfriendly, it's basically like they are saying "yeah, we are allowing you to shop here, so you better behave". In one store on Saturday, a sales person literally ripped a scarf that I was looking at out of my hands with a barely a "pardon" so she could put it on a mannequin. Umm, hello, is that mannequin going to buy that scarf? Yeah, I don't think so. But anyway, back to the Chinese restaurant. We literally waited 35-40 minutes to ORDER, and then another hour+ to get our food, which was so poorly timed coming out of the kitchen that I was finished with my food before a good half of our 9 person group had even gotten theirs yet. And then when a dish got brought out that wasn't what any of us ordered, we explained it to the waitress, who looked doubtful, and then the little chinese manager lady came out and looked at us all suspiciously and examined our dishes to somehow ascertain that we were not trying to pull the wool over her eyes. Lady, we just wanted our food! And then we went to a cafe and bought hot chocolate for 3.80 euros. That's approximately 5 dollars. France, your prices are ridiculous.

So Annie and I have this project to do for our history of toulouse class, which is technically over because it was part of our Orientation which ended last week, but whatever. We chose the gardens of Toulouse, because Toulouse really does have a magnificent collection of gardens that are gorgeous and a wonderful asset to the city. However...we can't find any information on them. A lot of our report is going to consist of pictures, which is definitely my cup of tea. We also have to do interviews, which is absolutely hilarious. If you were sitting in a park, enjoying a beautiful day with your family or just by yourself, would you really want a couple of foreigners to come up and ask you for an interview, while at the same time completely butchering your language? Let me just say....it's awkward. But our professor specifically wants interviews, so we have to. Laaaaaaaaaaaame. In other news, my classes (or our classes, cause Annie and I decided to go the twins route and take the same classes) are going really well. The IEP is small by French university standards (about 1500-2000 students, I think), so we are seeing a lot of the same people in our classes, and it's nice to see some familiar faces! And this week, classes start at the Dickinson Center and at ISTR, the catholic school where we're taking a couple of religion classes. All in all, I'm taking 4.5 credits this semester, because most of the classes at IEP and ISTR are only half credits. But whatever, they only meet once a week for a couple hours, which is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet and has allowed our schedule to be completely not sucky at all. And it'll also be great for any weekend traveling we want to do, because we get out of class at 10:30 on Fridays and our next class isn't until Tuesday morning. Awesome. Speaking of which, I'm getting really antsy to travel somewhere. Annie just bought tickets to England for November, and I'm hearing about a lot of other students making travel plans. So if you are in Europe at the moment, tell me and then I'll come visit you. If I can find cheap air/train fare. ;-)

A Bientot!