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!
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!
posted by Caitlin @ 11:20 AM
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