Winter Break

Hello, everyone.

Sorry…I’ve been too busy lately to update this. Kidding. That’s a bold faced lie. I haven’t been up to much, and it’s been wonderful.

My last exam was the 14^th of December. The long weekend after that was full of celebration and end of the semester festivities. My university has a lot of foreign students who only stay for one semester, so some goodbyes were said. It was sad, but we’ll run into each other again someday. There were about 100 of us in the initial crop who started in September, and I’m not sure how many are staying for the whole year, but a lot of my friends are sticking around and I’m sure lots of new people will come for the spring. I’ll survive.

I’ve made two trips to Marseille since exams ended. The 1^st was for a Segway tour with a friend, as a “gift to self” for surviving our first semester in France mostly because we love Arrested Development. If you don’t understand why we would do that, please sit down and watch all 52 episodes and then we can talk. Then a few days later another friend and I went back just to wander around the city shopping aimlessly for a few hours. I really miss true city life, and I forgot how close and accessible Marseille was. So I think I’ll definitely be going back more often in the future.

Then Christmas came around. As you know, I was pretty successful with spending Thanksgiving away from home and family, and it worked out again for the most part for Christmas. For dinner on Christmas Eve, some of the Americans from my program and I all had a potluck dinner at another girl’s house. Most of the kids in our program are either traveling around Europe, went home to the US, or have their families visiting them over winter break. But that left about 8 of us “all alone” in France for Christmas. It was really nice to spend an evening with the other misfits.

After that, I came home and Skyped into Wilson Family Christmas festivities at my Aunt Margie’s beautifully remodeled house. It was nice to “see” everyone from that side of my family. The Wilsons are a loud people, but once I had some external speakers hooked up to the laptop stateside, I was able to hold my own in the room. My father sent me a large box full of goodies for Christmas (thanks again, Dad!) and among other things, was a wrapped present that had “Do not open until on camera at Wilson Family Christmas. No commercial value. No useful value”. I instantly knew that it had to be full of tube socks stuffed with smaller items, also known as the classic Wilson Family party game “What’s in the Sock?” I was not let down, and my family got to watch me play What’s in the Sock. If you are curious about this game, as you should be, please ask me in another venue because I will not explain it here. But it’s hilarious. Then I digitally traveled from Greendale up to Whitefish Bay to visit with my mother’s side of the family for a bit, which was nice.

Since I haven’t usually been waking up in the AM lately, I missed Christmas morning. No big deal. Early in the afternoon, my friend Grace, along with her visiting sister and parents, came over for Christmas dinner. I realized how funny it was that not only them, but my friends here in general congregate at my house for meals because of my “good kitchen”. I don’t have a good kitchen by US standards, but as far as Aix student worthy apartments go, it’s AWESOME. So we cooked up and dined on some delicious duck and other things, washed it down with real champagne, and finished the meal off with a buche de noel (traditional French Christmas cake—think large, fancy ho ho). It was French, it was tasty, and it was fun.

Then I spent probably about 6 or so hours skyping into Christmas at my house. I had three gifts from my mother that I still hadn’t unwrapped, so I was added into the gift opening rotation just as if I had been there. They opened up the box that I sent home, which got beat to shit en route, and everyone loved what I included (except Ryan…because shipping abuse meant that his hollow chocolate Santa stood no chance, and arrived in powder form). The rest of the time I kinda just spent hanging out “at the counter” until I got too tired to stay up any later. They were cooking chicken wings and brats for Christmas dinner to eat while they were watching the Packer game, which I was jealous of. It’s no secret that I don’t care for watching sports, even if it is my home state’s nearly undefeated, reigning Super Bowl champion, American football team. But the idea of such a Wisconsin Christmas sounded wonderful.

So now I’m going back to doing nothing. But I’m not REALLY doing nothing. I gave my apartment a thorough cleaning, and I think it might look better now than it did the day I moved in, so…go, me. I’m doing a bit of reading on my lovely new Kindle Touch (thanks, mom and brad!). I’m doing a bit of research for my birthday trip to Milan. By the way, I’m going to Milan for my birthday with two girls from my program for a few days. I have plane tickets purchased and a hotel room booked, but I need to figure out exactly what I want to do when I get there. I’m very excited to use some Italian. I took four semesters worth at UWM for fun’sies, but it has kind of been buried in recent months by you know…living in France. Perhaps tonight I’ll watch La Vitta è Bella without any subtitles. Buongiorno, Prinicpessa! I’d like to take a day trip to the Alps over break, as well. They’re not that far away and there are plenty of cheap buses and trains that head in that direction. I just need to pick out a town or two to wander around for the day. And I’ll be baking some cookies, because three people know me well enough to know how much I would appreciate receiving American chocolate chips while in France. (Thanks Dad, Andrea, and Al!). Andrea gets bonus points because she also sent American brown sugar.

So yes, that’s my life right now.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and were fortunate enough to be surrounded by family and/or friends.

Bisous.

Travis came to sit at the counter as soon as they brought the chicken wings inside from the grill, and, unprompted, proceeded to stare directly at the computer for longer than I was comfortable. I could hear him purring through the webcam, and it looked like he was staring directly into my soul.
Christmas portrait. I think these photos are hilarious.

My body is easily convinced.

Shit. Does that title come off wrong?

This post is about sleep deprivation. I currently sitting in bed at 3:19am on a Tuesday morning and I'm running on three hours of sleep from yesterday. I'm blaming Thanksgiving weekend. For that stretch of four days, three of them I had spent awake until the wee hours of the morning for either American Skype dates or just for funsies.

And apparently that was enough. That was enough to convince my body to just forget everything it had ever been trained to do in the past and to just stay awake into all hours of the morning.

For a period of my life, I was going to bed at 8pm and waking up to go to work at 3am.
When I wasn't working that schedule...like clockwork I would start excessively yawning at 10:30pm on the dot and eventually go to bed at or before midnight.
I even once went through a period of a few months where I literally needed as much sleep as a four year old human.
And now here I am....laying awake at 3:31am on three hours of sleep.

Who am I, and what have I done with the old Carly?

This hasn't really caused me many problems so far. And you know why? Because I'm a champion. I got three hours of sleep last night, crawled out of bed, cleaned myself up, put on a blazer and some heels and went and passed two exams. By the way, passing exams here is really all I'm going for. It's enough of an accomplishment for me at this point.


In other related news, I have four exams left to take over the next week and a half. They're all oral finals and these are my only grades for the entire semester. That means I show up at a certain time, pick a topic/question at random from a pile, and am given 10 minutes to draft a structured oral response. Then I give my little schpeel to the professor, and then it's out of my control. Thank goodness for being an alumni of Greendale High School's forensics and debate teams.

And in more exciting news I have a Skype date with my circle of friends from school on Sunday morning. I was so happy to be invited to an event at Ben's apartment called "Say bonjour to Carly!" that I cried a little bit. Not gonna lie. I miss those people a lot and I can't wait to see them again, even if it's just through a computer screen.

So that's essentially all I have to say at the moment. Hopefully I'll fall asleep soon. This could make a great case to get a cat, actually. At home I fall asleep faster if my cat Princess is sleeping on the pillow next to me (can you believe a cat named Princess has her own pillow on a queen sized bed?) because she purrs all the time. So the cat could purr me to sleep....and defend my apartment from mice. I see no downside to this.

xoxo

The First Thanksgiving

Spending the holidays away from family and friends could very easily go wrong. Celebrating your first Thanksgiving somewhere that isn’t America could have easily been horrible. I’m glad to say that nothing went wrong, and nothing was horrible. I had a great Thanksgiving.

Wednesday night, about a dozen Americans from Sciences Po and other programs threw a potluck Thanksgiving for our international friends. Americans brought traditional Thanksgiving dishes, and everyone else brought food from their country or just something to contribute. This was the first Thanksgiving that I had really made food. I enjoy cooking and consider myself quite competent with a stove, but never really got assigned much for Thanksgiving at home. This year, I cooked up a bunch of chicken (because turkey was too expensive), cornbread (mix courtesy of a carepackage from the US), and cranberry sauce to contribute on behalf of myself and two of my American friends. I did a damn good job. Part of me wished I was just cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner myself because then I could feel completely accomplished, instead of just partially. But we’ll save that for next year or so.

Held in a large party room at the dorms, there were probably about 50 people who showed up. It was insane, as was the obscene amount of food we had to feast on. For the majority of the people in the room, it was their first American Thanksgiving and everyone was very eager to try all the strange food we cooked up. My cranberry sauce seemed to confuse people. They kept asking what they were supposed to put it on, probably because it was a sauce. Yeah I know it’s called a “sauce” but you don’t HAVE to put it on something…you can just eat it. The sweet potato casserole also perplexed some, due to the marshmallows on top. Fortunately by the end of the night, everyone tried a little bit of everything and I heard no complaints. Job well done, everyone.

At the end of the evening, some people had been asking what the story behind Thanksgiving was. I told everyone that if they wanted to hear the story of Thanksgiving to meet me on the other side of the room so I would only have to tell the story once. This quickly turned into “story time” when some people decided to sit cross legged in a semi circle around me, and then inspired the majority of the group to do the same. It was adorable. My ability to tell a good story combined with my bullshitting powers teamed up to tell a version of the story that 80% resembled what we teach kindergarteners, but with a little profanity mixed in. In the end, everyone had a great time. I love cooking for people. I love sharing the better aspects of American culture with other people. I love spending time with friends. I love telling people bullshit stories. It was the perfect storm of awesome.

As for Thanksgiving Day itself, the fun only continued. I decided ahead of time that the day would be heavily focused on Skype so that I didn’t have to feel like I was missing anything. This was the first Thanksgiving that my entire family hasn’t been together, and it was strange. To make the separation seem smaller, I figured my family could just open up their laptop, call me on Skype, and they could just leave me on the counter all day while they hung out and ate. The plan worked perfectly.

With the time difference of seven hours, it made the schedule a little tricky, but I wholeheartedly committed to it. I talked to my mom, stepdad, siblings, and pets for a while at my house. Later, I followed my siblings to the next location for festivities and spent some time with them, my dad, my stepmom. Eventually, they left for the next location…and so did I. I said goodbye to my siblings as they were leaving my father’s house, and greeted them as they arrived at my aunt’s house. From 5,000 miles away I still found a way to beat them to the party…at least digitally.

And so I hung out on the counter at my Aunt June’s house for a while. InitiallIy, I was just briefing my family on what I’ve been up to lately, since I haven’t spoken with some people in a few months. After a while though, I was just kind of hanging out like I was actually there. Thankfully at her house, most of the people sit at the table and just hang out for extended periods of time so I had a good stationary place to take in all the action. Towards the end of the night, I saw that my brother, who was in the living room, had posted a quote from Elf to facebook. I then demanded that someone please carry my laptop into the living room so that I could watch the movie with my siblings. They kept forgetting I was there, and would be startled when all the sudden I would comment on something or join the conversation. It was hilarious. Before the night ended, I even made it into the group photo, as a floating head on the kitchen table. I didn’t hang up the Skype call until my family was leaving to finally go home for the night, and I made it to bed around 4am.

I didn’t even have to miss a Thanksgiving meal. Between all of my Skype sessions, my program took our group out for the dinner we all needed at a nice restaurant. We all got our fix of turkey, stuffing, mashed potaters, and pumpkin pie. It was lovely.

In all, I had a great Thanksgiving. Between festivities with friends, and still being able to take part in everything that was happening at home with my family, I couldn’t be happier. The cherry on top is the fact that I’m currently sitting in the south of France, and not slaving away at Target during Black Friday right now. I'm thankful that I occasionally have ideas as good as my solution to holiday homesickness, and look forward to repeating the process come Christmas.

Photos...since I have real internet and can upload them to posts now:

Let the feast begin.

"Raise your hand if it's your first Thanksgiving!"

Story time.

Hanging out, watching the Packer game with my siblings....and Travis.

A less angry post about things I’ve been doing.

Here are some updates:

I made my first batch of chocolate chip cookies here. The ingredients posed some slight issues, aside from the basics.

· Brown sugar does not exist in its processed, American form, instead they have something called Cassonade. It’s closer to that “Sugar in the Raw” stuff than it is brown sugar…big ol’ grains of sugar…but at least it’s brown.

· They have vanilla extract, but I didn’t buy it because it’s expensive. Instead I bought these packets of vanilla something. I don’t know specifically what they are, other than the fact that it’s poor man’s vanilla flavor.

· Baking soda doesn’t really exist, instead they have something called leveur chimique, or chemical riser? That’s a shitty translation, but this stuff does the job.

· Chocolate chips exist…but they’re expensive and come in small quantities. I substituted M&Ms for one batch and crushed up a dark chocolate bar for another, with the latter being tastier.

· Crisco, the secret ingredient to my cookies (I can tell you the secret ingredient because I know you’ll never be able to duplicate them, unless I teach you how to make them), doesn’t EXACTLY exist here. Instead they have something called grasse a frire that is pure vegetable oil like Crisco…but hard like a brick. Cue some time in the microwave, and I can convince it to behave like I want to.

· So…essentially all that was the same was white sugar, flour, eggs, margarine, and salt. Hey look…you have all the ingredients. You still won’t be able to make them. Just ask Chris Sewalish.

Next challenge, mixing all this stuff together. My mother was kind enough to mail me some measuring cups and spoons, so I don’t have to worry about that. But I had never made cookies without an electric mixer before. So I spent some time fighting with a wooden spoon, the cheapass whisk I bought, and a fork. Eventually I showed the dough who was boss. After some time going through batch by batch to see which pan from my cupboard worked to bake them on, I eventually remembered that I had a metal cake pan that was the closest I’d get to a cookie sheet. It worked beautifully, and the cookies turned out well. As you may know, I have very high standards for my chocolate chip cookies. Given the circumstances, I did a very good job. But perfection can only be obtained with an electric mixer and 100% American ingredients.

Aside from testing out the recipe, I was preparing these cookies for the next life update I have. Through my program, I’ve started volunteering a few hours a week at a center where adults go to take intense English classes. Everyone who goes there is trying to learn English because they’re unemployed and want to be more marketable to employers. Each class focuses on a specific job sector, such as hotel/restaurant, tourism, sales/business, etc. It’s a bit of a somber mood when you realize why all these people are in a room together, but they have fun with it. So I show up there twice a week for two hours and speak English with these people. In exchange, they’re encouraged to invite me out to do things and speak French with them or if they want to practice their English more, we can speak English. Everyone there is super nice, and took down my information (and were impressed that I possessed personal business cards) and said they’d contact me in the future.

Today, I went in to have some discussion with the groups and brought them the cookies I made. They were too excited. I had mentioned that the colorful cookies were made with M&Ms because chocolate chips were too expensive. Then, one of the students mentioned that she has a stockpile of chocolate chips at home because she used to own a bakery and would be willing to trade chocolate chips for cookies. Then another student says that she would be willing to pay me to make cookies for her family and friends, and another agreed. So now it looks like I need to go through my receipts and see how much it costs me to make cookies in France. Because I think I just found another part time job. And this is all just proving the fact that I totally have a pretty sweet backup life plan if politics fails me.

After that, I went out for lunch with a group of eight people from the class who are learning English to find jobs related to tourism. They were very impressed when I said I could understand 95% of what they were saying during the table wide discussion and that my French sounded very good. My French is just better than their English, let’s be real. My French has a long way to go. But it was a very fun environment for all of us to practice in, and I look forward to joining them in the future.

Smaller updates:

· Contrary to popular belief due to the tone of my blog, I’m having fun here.

· If you’re reading this blog, then you should probably know me. If you know me, then you know I can be an asshole most of the time. But I mean well. Usually.

· I love it here. I don’t want to come home. At least not until June. I am very happy with my choice to come to this city, this school, and to stay for a year. My life is magical, goddamn it. I’m living in the south of France. I miss some things about home, but the things I find here that I can’t find back home combined with the “once in a lifetime opportunity effect” are doing a good job at fighting off most homesickness.

· I still don’t have internet. I’m still angry about it. My roommates and I are still working on it. This is giving me some practice with my Angry French, something I insist on mastering before I leave this country. If I got home not speaking normal French any better but could argue and rip someone a new one like nobody’s business, I’d be totally content. This is what’s important to me.

· I remain upset about a lack of contact with friends from back home. The only time I have reliable, long term internet time is my afternoon/your morning. And you people (what do you mean you people) are all getting ready for, and going to class then. I miss all of you. So I know we haven’t talked in a while, but please don’t forget about me. As a point of reference, American Central Time and I are seven hours apart. I have some great friends here in France, but they will never replace the ones I left in America.

· My friends and I had taco night the other day. The only thing missing was margaritas. But it was still great. I still miss real Mexican food though.

More updates to come as my life continues to get more interesting.

I spent Halloween weekend in Paris.

I’ve been learning French since 2002, and Paris is pretty much the cornerstone of all things French. So I’ve learned about it two or three times. Seen a couple movies that took place there. Seen a few pictures in a book. I don’t travel much. Traveling would require more money or a stronger US dollar in the global currency markets. I’ve never been blessed with either, so I’ve been waiting for this for a while.

I’m a city girl. After spending the summer in Washginton, I had been experiencing a bit of an itch to get back to a real urban environment. Aix-en-Provence is lovely and I fully support my decision to study here, but it is in no way shape or form Paris. I love having tons of people around. I love being able to take a train across the city and pop up somewhere completely different. I always have a strange sense of being “at home” whenever I’m zigzagging through the streets of Chicago or DC, and can only imagine the same for New York. Paris satisfied my need for some city time.

Paris was pretty much every photo and movie I had ever seen coming to life. It looked exactly like I expected it to, but I was just so excited to finally be there that it seemed better. The first place we went when we arrived was a neighborhood called Montmartre. As we turned around a corner and got to the Sacré Coeur and all I could think was, “Oh my god I’m at Amélie”.

I went to the Louvre. I climbed stairs halfway up the Eiffel Tower and then took an elevator up the rest of the way. I sat on a bench inside the Arc de Triomphe wishing I remembered why/when they built it and wondered how you get your name written on its walls. I saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle at night. I enjoyed a picnic dinner of bread, wine, and cheese along the banks of the Seine. I wandered through Notre Dame. I walked down the Champs Elysees. All things Paris.

I also saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show in a small movie theater with a shadow cast, which is actually the only theater in France that is licensed to play it. The amount of continuity that film adds to my life is almost disturbing. I’d say I’m not ashamed to say how many times I’ve seen it in a theater, but it’s too many to count. Many of my life’s adventures revolve around going to see that movie in Milwaukee and it clearly holds a special place in my heart. So the fact that I was seeing it 5,000 miles away from home made me feel pretty good.

Three days in Paris to be a mega tourist proved to be a proper amount of time. I was very happy to return to Aix. Things are simpler here, and that is what I need in life right now. I look forward to visiting Paris again in the spring and hopefully having a different kind of visit. In the meantime, I’ll just ask that you continue to be jealous of my life. I know I would be.

Miss you all. Give yourself a hug, from me.

This post is full of profanity. You have been warned.

Fuck this country.
Fuck the internet.
Fuck Orange Telecommunications.
Fuck my 400 year old basement apartment.
Fuck everything.

Since my arrival in France, I have been telling everyone that I don’t have internet. The ultimate irony in the situation is that I can’t communicate with any of you without the internet. So if I’m posting on Facebook, sending emails, or putting up blogposts…how can I not have internet?

For the first month that I was in France, a public network would “float” into my room most of the time. The only catch was I needed to have my computer resting on the wide window ledge above my desk. It was uncomfortable to lean over my desk, and it was a terribly weak and almost useless signal, but if it connected me to the outside world and was a temporary solution…I’d oblige. One of my friends was kind enough to give me a password to said network, since it was already included in her rent. Between that temporary fix and having internet access at my program’s office, I could get by. My roommates and I were in the process of figuring out all the information we needed to set up a connection and what company we were going to use. All of us had some tiny stolen internet connection, so it wasn’t an especially pressing issue.

Unfortunately, as I enter month three in France, I haven’t seen this public network floating into my windowsill in weeks with the exception of a handful of moments. Somehow, every bedroom in my apartment can grab stolen signal…except mine. It’s not available in the kitchen or the living room. The tables and chairs that were in my private garden have long since disappeared (apparently it’s winter here now?). I’m relying on the schedule and goodwill of others to contact the outside world for short periods of time.

Enter my household’s ongoing fight with the phone company.

Since this is France; the land where apparently up is down, black is white, and every piece of paperwork needs an identity photo paper clipped to it—getting an internet connection is unnecessarily complicated. We needed the name of whoever used our telephone line last in order to avoid a 50 euro fee to set up a new phone line. We checked with our landlady, who didn’t have anything to tell us. I’m not even going to expand on that because I think its crazy speaks for itself. The company was able to give us a list of people who had at least used our number in the past, which we cross referenced with the list of former students from my program (remember that my program works with the same landlords every year…so one of these people lived in my apartment and used the same line and got internet because no one wants to live in 1993 again). One of the names matched up, we passed it onto the company, and they said it would take about 2 weeks for us to get the box and get the line activated.

That was 5 weeks ago. What has happened between now and then? We received the box in a timely fashion…but it wouldn’t activate. After waiting three weeks post signing the contract, giving them the benefit of the doubt, we finally went and had our program staff contact the company. Orange said that they never received the name of the girl who used the line before, so they couldn’t set up the line. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT, ORANGE. YOU HAD THE NAME. After re-giving them the name, they said we would have to wait a few more days and then they box would be activated. Again, BULLSHIT…but okay, it looks like this is almost over.

While in Paris last weekend, a blogpost that will make it up here eventually, we found out that the line was activated. And there was much rejoicing. Until we got home only to see that it wasn’t activated. We went into our office to get help dealing with the company again, and they were supposed to call my roommate yesterday to start dealing with this again. They never did. Repeat the same process today, and she finally received the call. The company asked what our problem was, even though it has been explained to them a thousand times, they do their thing, and reply that there’s a problem with our line. NO SHIT SHERLOCK. I HADN’T NOTICED. So they’re going to call my roommate back on Sunday to set up an appointment for a technician to come out later in the week. That last part is too ridiculous for me to even expand on.

It is the year 2011. I am living in a decent sized city with 50,000 other college students. It is a goddamn right for me to have an internet connection. It hit me this week that I have been away from home for five months, because I’m not counting the ten hectic days between France and DC. I miss everyone. I feel super disconnected. I haven’t skyped with a single friend. I can count the number of good facebook chat conversations on one hand. I’m starting to go crazy. I bought George W Bush’s autobiography to have something to read. This is what happens when I don’t have access to the internet.


Please send love, notes, internet, and help to:
Carly Danger Wilson, Academic Program in Aix
30 Avenue Victor Hugo
13100 Aix-en-Provence

If your love, notes, internet, and help don’t fit in an envelope…please write “sans valeur commercial” on the box…or else I’ll have to pay import taxes.
=========================================================

I want to take the goddamn internet box and do this with it. All day everyday.

Danger Proof

A few days ago, the director for my program posted in our Facebook group that she was interested in doing some hiking through the calanques of Cassis (a town just outside of Aix) and she had room in her car for a few students. Having no plans and a desire to visit the area, I decided to tag along. It was probably in the mid 60s today…by no means warm, but still nice by Wisconsin standards. We trekked across town to the calanques. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, calanques are these little Mediterranean bays surrounded by high limestone cliffs—and they pretty much only exist in my region. They’re also totally awesome.

This adventure quickly changed courses for me. At the beginning of October while at the beach in La Ciotat, my friends started to really understand how crazy I was as I dragged them through the woods to mysterious beaches and crept towards the edge of cliffs for “cooler pictures”. They quickly decided that should a career in politics fail for me, reality TV is a viable option.

My show would be called ‘Danger Proof’ and it would entail any number of dangerous adventures, and the winner would be deemed…danger proof. Between what I put my friends through that day, and my trip to Mt. Sainte Victoire, this trip was episode three. I almost gave our director Kelly many a heart attacks, and I’m sure once my parents see the pictures from today they might too. Ma and Pa, if you see a photo of me standing in front of a cool background, don’t worry…I’m probably standing on the edge of a cliff. So I’m pretty much a chaperon’s worse nightmare, because not only am I running around doing crazy shit, I was inspiring my friends on the trip to try it after I did. No one was hurt in the making of this blog post, except me. I might have a few bruises that are all my fault.

Anyhow, after a few hours of hiking up and down the rocky slopes of the hills surrounding the calanques, we made it to a lovely beach. Our director told us to bring a swim suit and towel, just in case. In all honesty I thought she was crazy, but a practice suit and a sports bra are practically the same thing, so I figured why not. Upon arrival at the beach, I was glad I had a suit on because there was no way I was not going swimming. The air was almost chilly. The water was cold. However, spending a decade as a competitive swimmer with 7am practices outside during cool Wisconsin summers; this wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I still can’t believe that I went swimming at the end of October. Shit’s crazy. It was all fun until I realized that there was a jellyfish swimming right next to me. Lacking goggles to see where his family was hiding; I decided that was enough swimming for me.

I’ve seen more nature during my two months in the south of France than I’ve seen my past several years in Wisconsin. Then again, Provence is different kinds and amounts of beautiful than Wisconsin is. But hiking and I are on much better terms than we were this summer in rural Virginia. I will admit I am no longer anti hiking. I’ll still pass on the sleeping in the woods thing, though.

I watch too much Seinfeld.

As you might have seen on Facebook, some of my friends and I are involved in a bit of a contest. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and early in the morning last week an idea came to me. We all wish we were speaking more French, but we’re just so damn good at English. I’m pretty sure humans are lazy by nature, which is why we invented the wheel. There’s nothing wrong with being lazy, because without that motivation to make life easier, we never would have built the society we have today. Unfortunately being lazy isn’t going to help me get better at French.

Like most of life’s situations, I quickly realized there was an episode of Seinfeld that dealt with this very similarly. The episode is called “The Contest” and I’m not going to lie, it’s hilarious. The Seinfeld four all throw down some money to see how long they can go abstaining from a certain activity. Since I know my Grandma reads this blog, I’m not going to talk about what that is. So my friends and I have all thrown down a small sum of money (just 3€ each) to see how long we can go without speaking English.

There are obviously exceptions to this rule. We all have armies of family and friends back home who don’t speak French. One can’t expect themselves to bar communication with the outside world for the sake of competition. That’s just stupid. So we can use our computers in English. We can speak English during specified English speaking periods (courses taught in English, language exchange dinner, and English tutoring). There are a few more exceptions that I won’t spell out, but the point is that they exist. Attn France folk blog creepin’: if you want a copy of the contract I can email it to you.

We even set up a court system for when a contestant wants a fair trial, if they think they can make their case that they should still be allowed in the system. All judgments made by this court will set precedent and become contract law, should future problems arise. I guess someone in my group had to be the nerd who thinks of all of these things. Of course that someone is me.

(Oh no, she thinks she’s a lawyer again…)

We’re playing by the honor system. That might seem farfetched to some people, but I’m fine with it. I trust my friends not to break the rules, and I know they trust me too. That’s how this system works. I might be a bitch, but I’m not a liar.

If I make it a week I’ll be happy. If I win I’ll be even happier. And if I wasn’t already filing papers to have my middle name legally changed to Danger, I’d make a joke here about how winning was my middle name. Mind games are my specialty. Anyone who has played Circle of Death with me while I was ‘Quizmaster’ can attest to that.

Duh, #winning.

===========================================================================
Update: Since I still don’t have internet, there’s a bit of a delay between when these things are written and when they are posted. I wrote this yesterday, and was going to post it this morning. I knocked on my roommate’s door and asked her for the papers that came with the internet box to try and figure it out, and we had a brief exchange. We went back to doing our own activities, and then I paused,

“Dru…we’re speaking English.”
“Shit.”
“I think we both just lost.”
“Yup.”

I could edit this post and go back and remove that cocky paragraph, but I won’t. I made it two full days, and failed without even realizing it right away. This is hard. Turns out when you spend the first part of the morning alone in your room, and then go talk to another English speaker, odds are you’re both very likely to revert back to your natural tendencies. I know I said I’d be happy if I made it a week, and I clearly didn’t last that long. But I’m not upset, because it’s just too damn funny.

Better luck next time, Wilson.

I has job.

I officially have a job as an English tutor/teaching assistant! An English professor at the Economics school in town is not only American, but an alumnus from the very study abroad program that I’m here with. So for the past couple years she has been letting students from my program interview for spots as TAs for the discussion sections of her English classes. We lead them in listening/speaking activities and grade them on their participation. I’m only able to do it for one hour a week right now based on the course’s enrollment, but hey…money is money.

I was also super excited to update my resume before I interviewed. Just being able to add “the Office of Congresswoman Gwen Moore—Washington, DC” still seemed way too cool. I’m sorry if it seems like I’ve developed a complex because of it….but I still think it’s way too awesome. That internship was pretty damn close to the top of the ladder for opportunities I can get in my field at this level in my career. I’d say I can’t believe I was able to do it, but I also have high expectations for myself. If you were to tell me five years ago that I’d be where I am today…I’d say that sounds about right.

But having an updated resume, some very official writing samples, and a new job makes me a pretty happy camper right now. I figured I could take this job not only because it’s one of the only sources of income I can nab while I’m here (it’s this or babysitting—and I think you know my thoughts on children), but it’s a good thing to have for my future. The Peace Corps is on my list of 10 things I could do in my mid-range future, so a little English teaching experience could never hurt…since if I wanted to enlist, that’s what I would be doing. Or you know, a little work experience abroad never hurt anyone’s resume, either.

Thankfully my previous experience working with students will come in handy. It seems to me that running a discussion section will be like leading an educational program. I’ve done plenty of those. The other day I was going through all the old pictures I had on my computer, and I saw a photo of my residents from last year. It’s a photo from a program where I told my group “my boss told me to take pictures at my programs for some blog, so please put on a big fake smile so it looks like I’m doing my job”. I miss my residents, but I don’t miss that job. It solved a lot of my financial problems, for which I’m eternally thankful, but I’m very happy that I have moved on.


Other fun things of lately:

-Friday afternoon I went to a dog rescue center outside of town with the faculty director for my program and two other girls. We helped them with some chores (dishes, dog poo, brushing) in exchange for playing with everybody. They probably have 100 dogs. There are different sections of the property all fenced off into large play areas, and the dogs are divided up by size and temperament. They were all super nice and just wanted some love. I went into one of the kennel buildings and got assigned a real cute moppy looking guy named Balto to brush. He was such a sweetie. I’d kneel down, and he’d just come right up to me and put his head in my armpit. He just wanted a dog hug. It was a good time.

-I added a new class to my schedule, ‘Politics of the European Union’. It’s taught in English, and is only open to international students. It sounds super interesting. I’m going to try and bullshit UWM into counting it as something else I need for my major. Those people WILL give me what I need. Don’t worry about me not being able to graduate at the end of this year though—I’ve got this under control. My four year degree will be completed in four years flat.

-I’ve been having fun cooking. My friends are lucky, because I like to cook and have a real kitchen, and they like to eat. A few of us get together for dinner/meal once a week or so and everyone chips in with ingredients or just money. This morning I made crepes for the group. Nutella crepe is exactly as amazing in the States as it is in France.

-This isn’t so much a thing as it is a discovery. My friends and I discovered Lay’s cheeseburger flavored potato chips yesterday. WHY DON’T THESE THINGS EXIST IN AMERICA. I don’t even eat chips back home, but I’m having to implement a policy of moderation because these things are too good.


Life is good. Miss you all.

BEACH BEACH BEACH

Yesterday, my friends and I finally made it to the beach. The faculty director for our program had suggested to the students that we take the bus to a town called “La Ciotat” because it was easy to get to and was beautiful. We took her advice, but I of course did plenty of research before getting there, comparing the beaches and looking exactly where the bus could drop us off. In my search, I saw that there was a small island just off the coast of La Ciotat that you could get to by a 10€ round trip ferry boat.

In English, this place was called Green Island—and for good reason. Apparently this place is the only wooded island in the department of Bouches de Rhone, which is the department in which I live. Side note—departments are kind of like states, but not. The government is totally centralized, there are no “departmental laws” or any form of real government in the departments. There are specifically drawn regions; I live in the Provence-Alps-Cote D’Azur region. Whatever that means, because I know those don’t have any specific powers either. I’ll have to look this up later. But back to the beach. It’s a little tiny uninhabited island. There are hiking trails (it takes about an hour to circle the island) two small beaches, a little pier for the boats to dock at, and then a small restaurant.

Thanks to my research, I was able to see that the bus was dropping us off right next to the tourism office, and also right next to the old port where the website said the ferry boat left from. We got off our bus, stopped by the tourism office to ask specifically where the boat leaves from, and then within a half hour we had found the boat, and crossed over to the island. After a short hike, we found the first beach. The water was a little chilly, but totally tolerable. I think it was warmer than the Atlantic I swam in over the summer. A few weeks back when we began planning our beach trip, we picked up some $3 goggles at French Walmart because we were told that this island was GREAT for snorkeling, but they don’t rent equipment. That was the best decision ever. The water was so incredibly clear, and there were tons of fish, plants, and other sea things on the bottom. I was literally swimming through schools of fish. It was awesome. Being poor and not having traveled much, this was exponentially more exciting than swimming in Lake Michigan, some other tiny Sconnie lake, or the Atlantic Ocean in Delaware. For those who are wondering, I did see dudes in Speedos and some boobs. I don’t think this was a nude beach, but there were only a dozen or so people there so it didn’t really matter. We all kept our tops on.

After that, we hiked around the island for a bit. The Mediterranean coast where I live is famous or a geological feature called “calanques” which means ‘inlet’ or something. In a nutshell, it pretty much means little coves surrounded by large cliffs. It’s awesome.

Eventually, we made it to the second beach. Fun fact, beaches here are mostly rocks. If you find a beach that’s sand, it’s because it’s not natural and they trucked the sand in. Before we went swimming, I dragged my group down some not steep rocky cliff next to the beach. We layed out on the end of that little point for a while and nibbled some more on our lunches. We were so prepared and brought lunches and snacks.

We thought that it would be cool to take Little Mermaid style photos of us propped up on the rocks in front of us. Being the adventurous one, I started to crawl down the rocks and get into the water to swim a bit, and then attempt this feat. I should have turned around right away. Being on a point, and not in a protected beach cove, there were some small waves coming in that were just large enough to try to move me from my perch on the rocks. Also important, the rocks were both slippery/slimy and sharp/pointy. So getting comfortable on them was not easy, and even less easy when being hit by waves every 20 seconds. The ensuing scene, which lasted for about 10 minutes, was me trying to crawl out of the water while yelling about how much these rocks hurt, and how this was such a bad idea. Since my friends sat safely on dry land and watched the whole thing while laughing, there are photos of this. I will not post them. You need to go onto facebook to find them. I promise it’s hilarious.


After all of that, we went to the real beach right next to the dangerous rocks, and did some more swimming. Then, it was time to head back to the pier, catch a ferry boat back to La Ciotat, and then catch a bus back to Aix. The bus ride was about an hour and a half, but we were only like 30 miles away from Aix. It had to make lots of stops. But for 2€ round trip, I’m not going to complain.

It was a wonderful day at the beach. I only burned a little bit in a few places, and I’ve been informed that I look rather tan. Thus goes to show that I am only a half-blooded Ginger. It might seem crazy to be going to the beach in October, but there might still be one more beach weather weekend left here.

Is it snowing in Wisconsin yet?

Reason’s I’m spoiled.

1). The weather.
I’ve been here over a month and I can think of three, maybe four days that haven’t been 70 or 80 and sunny without a cloud in the sky. In the winter, the high temperatures are supposed to be in the mid 50’s, with the lows in the upper 30’s. Coming from Milwaukee, WI, that seems pretty unreal. Provence is sunny 300 days out of the year, and apparently the rain/clouds are concentrated in fall and spring…so if it makes you feel better it will start raining on my parade soon.

2). The food
This should come as no surprise. Every day in the center of town, there’s a farmer’s market where I can go and get whatever fresh fruits and vegetables I might need for today or tomorrow. I found a good bakery a few blocks from my apartment where I go and get bread every few days for .70€. But it’s not just the fresh things—even a lot of the packaged stuff at the grocery store is phenomenal. The fruit juice here comes in unseen flavors, like pear or peach, and then it’s essentially just a bunch of pears or peaches blended up and bottled in much higher concentrations than US juice. The French also have some weird knack for serving way too many things in mini yogurt containers, which I’m still figuring out. But I do know what I have developed a taste for chocolate mousse that comes in these little plastic cups and has nutritional content far too similar to yogurt, so I don’t feel bad having one.

3). The wine
Again, this should come as no surprise. France is world famous for their wine for good reasons. Being a cheapass, I haven’t spent much on a bottle yet. For one special dinner I got a 7€ bottle, otherwise I hover around 4€ and under. I haven’t taken a class or gone to a wine tasting yet, but it’s on my list of things to do. Anyhow, a lot of the stuff sold here is grown and produced nearby. Provence is famous for their rosé wines. I’ve tried probably 10 or 12 different kinds and most of them have been good.

4). My school

I love Sciences Po. It’s a 10 minute walk from my apartment (straight through the adorable center of town) and all my classes are centered in their main, yet still small, building located in the center of town right across from an awesome old cathedral. I’ve met some really nice people from all over the world because the school is 30% international students, and a lot of the French students are also very nice. All my classes meet once a week for two hours, and there’s a break halfway through for people to get coffee and/or smoke. I have one class on Monday and Thursday, and two classes back to back Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and that’s it. Twelve credits, the minimum for my program. The list of classes I have to choose from each semester is two pages long, instead of ¼ page.

*This post was initially titled “Five Reasons I’m spoiled” but I couldn’t think of a 5^th one, so I’ll have to come back to this and update it as I realize how much I love life. Stay tuned, and be prepared to get jealous.

France is everything you want it to be.

I have officially been gone for just over a month. And status report—I love it here. France is everything you want it to be. People walking around carrying baguettes? Plenty. People drinking Perrier? Of course. Couples awkwardly rolling around on top of each other in the park? Welcome to Europe.

I don’t think I have any real complaints. Everything is a little different, but if you’re not expecting that to happen, you’re an idiot. I’m just really enjoying doing something different with my life. For the past three years, I was juggling full time school, one full time job on breaks, one part time job on breaks, summer classes, winter classes, and one “part time job” during school that took up way too much of my time/energy/sanity. So I haven’t had a real break in a long time. Even though I got dressed up every day this summer and went into an office, it never felt like work. The Capitol was too magical a place for it to feel real.

So this is my vacation. I get back to the States a college graduate who has no plans to go on to graduate school (unless someone reading this has $40,000 laying around that they’d like to send my way, then—yes, please!). I need to find a real job and start earning real money. But that’s a scary topic to handle another day. In a nutshell, I’m returning home to another crazy schedule where I know I won’t get a real break for some time. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to Europe…politics and fighting for people’s rights doesn’t pay very well. And I’m totally fine with that, it just means I really need to enjoy it extra while I’m here.

My classes are all going well. I can understand most of what the professor says, which helps a lot. Sometimes I forget my lectures are in French. Then all the sudden I look around and realize that I’m going to school at a French university sitting side by side with French students and I’m happy. If anyone is curious, I’m taking French as a foreign language, comparative political institutions, history of the European Union, political sociology, American political society, and comparative law. They’re all super interesting.

With the exception of my mandatory French class, it’s really awesome that all my classes are poli sci. Students here don’t have to put up with the bullshit that the American system puts people through. They don’t have to take art, cultural diversity, science, etc. They just take what their program is. I told some other foreign students that I could have finished my degrees in two and a half years if I hadn’t had to deal with the stupid general education requirements and they were astounded. Maybe that’s nice for students who need to figure out what they want to do, but I would have preferred another two years of heavy poli sci training.

Either way, it’s done. I’m done with the American system, but not America. Don’t worry about that. I will be coming home in a few months. I’ve started to get a little homesick, but there are ways to make it better. Last night some friends came over and we cooked American breakfast for dinner, which consisted of chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, and orange juice. It was amazing. Ketchup, even though it didn’t have red dye or preservatives in it, still tasted like America. We also had a meeting with the study abroad advisors from the offices in Indiana and Madison yesterday, who were in town to check out the program and evaluate it. Those nice people brought bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups with them. Pretty sure I squealed when I entered the room and saw them. It’s the little things such as those that can make all the difference.

No more updates for now. Maybe later this week.

I fought a mountain today.

Nature and I have a complicated relationship. I’m injured very easily due to no one’s fault but my own. I’m half ginger, so I burn easily. The combination of these things, but mainly the first one, makes mountain climbing quite the feat.

During orientation week, I read that the international association at my school was organizing a trip to climb the local mountain, Monte Sainte Victoire. The mountain hangs out just a half hour north of Aix, and gained international fame thanks to an impressionist painter named Paul Cezanne, a native of Aix. Cezanne gained much fame after his death, and apparently the US got into him before the French did. This means that the US has more of his work than France does, which they don’t like. But Aix loves their Cezanne. He has a little bit of everything named after him, including the larger university I attend (of which Sciences Po is just a part). There are bronze squares in the ground with his name on them all over town, taking you from one Cezanne landmark to the next (I live right around the corner from his middle school). But back to the mountain…he painted it like a gajillion times. If you run a Google image search of “monte sainte victoire” you get more pictures of Cezanne’s work than you do photos of the mountain.

Being quite the local landmark, I told myself early on that this was something I had to do while I was here. It worked out nicely that the association was organizing a trip. I pay them four euro, they reserve buses, feed me breakfast, and find 70 or so other students to struggle up the mountain with me.

After meeting up a few blocks from my house, we departed on the chartered coach buses. We definitely drove past a vineyard during our 30 minute ride. Welcome to France. They dropped us off in a parking lot, and we were in dismay. Are we supposed to walk all the way over there? And up that high? Yes. This is literally what I signed up for. Why am I doing this to myself? Is there a lift? Is there a slide on the way back down?

We trekked over a large dam was apparently constructed with funds received from the Marshal Plan, for people who think that’s cool. Then began the zig sagging through the woods, down some hills, and then up some much larger ones. The terrain ranged from dirt, to large gravel, to hopping from one rock to the next. I wore real tennis shoes this time, and brought water, and brought food. Try explaining to someone how you accidentally went hiking over the summer, and learned not to wear Converse in the woods/on a mountain. Apparently it’s a strange thing to have happened to you, but this is my life.

After a hike of about three hours, we finally reached the top. At many points I could have easily died. There was no shortage of steep cliffs to fall off of, especially when you’re stumbling and exhausted. Thankfully that didn’t happen. There’s a monastery at the top where I think you can spend the night. We actually climbed a bit higher than the monastery, to the true top. Everyone brought out their picnic lunch, and relaxed for an hour or so. After a much easier two hour climb back down, I was never so happy to see a parking lot in my life.

I didn’t twist an ankle. I didn’t dislocate a knee. I technically fell on my butt once, but no harm done. Some bushes tried to eat me, but I made it out alive. I made it to the top, and then back down to the bottom. I fought the mountain, and I won.

Children, cover your ears. Fuck the metric system.

A month before I got over here, I tried to convince myself that I should try to better understand the metric system. Said effort miserably failed. I was too busy with other things that it just didn't happen. So now I’m in France. Which isn't the United States. Which means they use the metric system for everything, as opposed to selectively like they do back home. I think large soda bottles and science are the only things that use this “strange” system. I say “strange” because it really does make more sense, but that doesn't mean I understand it.

The only conversions I understand is that 1 kilo is 2.3lbs and 5 kilometers is 3.1 miles. Neither of those is really helping me. When shopping for produce and whatnot, I can guestimate what one pound feels like, but 2.3 is a bit of a stretch. As far as distance goes, I’m totally lost. I was looking up some directions on GoogleMaps and the final distance was 800 meters. What does that even mean? Sure, I was a swimmer for a long time, and for part of the season my events were in meters. I remember 50 meters of backstroke seeming like forever. So, if it’s 800 meters from A to B, and I walk backwards and multiply 16 times forever, that should be something I understand right?

This is starting to make cooking difficult. I have found comfort in rice. I can handle that. Take a juice glass, fill it up to the line with water twice, and then once with rice. 2:1. I can handle simple ratios. Aside from that, I think I’m going to have to add measuring spoons and cups to my next care package. Mother—if you’re reading this, please add it to my running list. Thanks.

I made an ass of myself in class the other day. My comparative law professor was talking about how the same laws were different in all sorts of countries, like speed limits for example. He went around the room naming off major countries, asking their speed limits. With Sciences Po being international people pretty much replied to their home state. Once he asked about the United States, I said 70 because I was the only American in the room. After that, the prof replies, “That’s pretty slow…”And of course I couldn’t think fast enough to say “I don’t understand the metric system. Please convert 70 to kilometers per hour” so he just moved on. I’ll survive.

Temperature hasn’t been a problem. I still use weather.com for all of my forecast needs, which is in Fahrenheit. Time has posed a slight issue. What is metric time you ask? The 24 hour clock. In the states it’s only used for science, for the most part…just like meters and whatnot. I recently found how to change the clock on my cell phone to include am and pm. It’s wonderful.

I’ll have to revisit this post at the end of my stay and see if I actually understand this any better…

But I will resist.
USA! USA! USA!

These people are all liars // General Updates

I've noticed that these people can't keep their story straight lately...


1) I walk around town on any given day and I see people wearing shirts that have text in English. “Oh look, another Anglophone!” is what my mind instantly jumps to. Wrong. Lies. They are a French person. Apparently they think it’s cool to wear things printed in English. I think it’s bullshit. Get your own t-shirts.

2) Europe claims to be all high and mighty with recycling and reusing stuff. Me being concerned with all of those things and just being straight up poor, brought my reusable plastic water bottle. I look around in my giant lectures and see disposable plastic water bottles EVERYWHERE. Are these kids too lazy to remember to grab the same bottle every day and go fill it up? Do they have enough money to buy a bottle of Evian every day? I don’t know. But I’m calling bullshit on this behavior.

3) Deodorant here is weird. Make some joke about how French people smell, and I will fly home and punch you in the mouth. I’m sick of it. That being said, I’ve seen this in several stores now, and I might be wrong, but I think I’ve noticed a trend. The majority of the stuff is in aerosol cans. I’ve seen it back in the States, but it’s not nearly as popular. If your country is going to sign onto the Kyoto Protocol and whatnot, how about you not use aerosol cans so much? Pretty sure that was one of the things they first figured out people should stop doing once people all the sudden started to get green conscious. I’m having my mom ship me normal stuff once I actually need more. So once again, I call bullshit. Stick to your story, France.

4) This weekend was “La Patrimoine”, loosely translated as history-fest. Since France is so old, there are more substantial historical sites than in the States. Since they use larger portions of their budget to take care of their citizens, they have to be smart with what’s left. So, all of this stuff is open only this weekend, for the most part. They open it all up for free, and make a big deal out of all of it. That way, the upkeep costs are smaller and everyone can have an equal opportunity to learn about their country. But now to the bullshit…my landlady. Her house/building is from the mid 1600s, and mine probably is too, but it’s not the same style at all so it’s less cool. She was charging 2 euro for a quick tour, and 4 euro for a longer tour. Really, lady? Do you need the money that bad? She was pretty much the only one charging an entry fee. I declare bullshit.

But everything isn’t bullshit.

Fun things of recent:

My roommate and I trekked the whole two blocks to the laundromat. We walk in, and there are two women and a man who appear to be in their early 60s. They were speaking American English, and as soon as they heard my roommate and I were as well, they just about died. They didn’t speak French and couldn’t figure out the weird payment/starter machine. We helped them out, I let them use some of my soap, which they nicely overpaid me for. It was a wonderful little encounter.

I almost have a cat over here. This little all white kitty quickly figured out how to get into my friend’s building through a window, and go all the way up the stairs to her 5^th floor apartment. She can be super cute and sweet…or sometimes she just wants to sleep on Grace’s bed alone and will take a swipe at you if you try to disturb her. And kitty apparently just comes over whenever she wants and stays however long she wants. So if I’m ever over there, there’s a 75% chance the cat is already there, will come over while I’m there, or will be outside and if we call her name out the window she will come over. It’s awesome.

Today was the 2^nd or 3^rd nasty day since I’ve been here. I was originally planning on going to the beach, so it sucked. But looking at the bigger picture, I’ve been here for just about three and a half weeks, and aside from these couple not nice days, it’s been sunny, 80, and not a single cloud in the sky. I’ve been told that rain comes in the fall and spring, and winter and summer are pretty dry. So we’ll see.

I still don’t have real internet. I remain convinced that wifi is black magic. Ok, “friends”…if it’s a stupid question as to whether it leaks through an open window or not…is rain a legitimate excuse for wifi to suck? And how come my roommate’s laptop can grab wifi in more spots than mine, but mine gets BETTER wifi in some of those spots? I don’t understand this stuff.

My friends and I decided that we’d like to go to Paris for Halloween. They do the Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday and Saturday, so we’d like to go for that. I already decided that my costume this year is going to be a unicorn. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m keeping my eyes peeled for inspiration.

So that’s what’s going on in my life. Hopefully soon I’ll have real internet and I can Skype with people to catch up on what’s going on in your lives. This stolen stuff can barely load a facebook page; much less wrap itself around Skype.

TTNF, ta ta for now.

Back to school...

So I really suck at updating this blog, but that’s okay. If I remember correctly, my last update was last Thursday or something before I went to Marseille. I can’t even look up what my last update was because I’m typing this into a Word document and will copy and paste it when I lift my computer onto the ledge so that it can have internet for a brief while. Could I edit this out once I have internet? Yeah sure. But then you wouldn’t understand what my life is like.

So this was my first real week of classes. At Sciences Po, students pick a sub specialty within the school right from the start, and are stuck with that track for the rest of their time there. I don’t even know what they are because I’m not a real student. Not that it’s privileged information, I just don’t care because it doesn’t concern me. So this means that everyone in my classes take the same block of courses, have the same schedule, and all know each other. Though they know that there are plenty of international students who are there to choose from the menu of classes in its entirety, it’s still an awkward situation. On Monday I went to a class on comparative political institutions, and had to squeeze out of the room when it ended because everyone else was staying there for another class with their block right after.

Today, I went to classes on sociology of politics and the American political society. The first one was alright, I haven’t taken sociology before but I’m sure it can’t be that hard. The American one…was interesting. When I decided to take it, I was prepared to fight with my program’s faculty director and have to tell her that I “want to see it from a French prospective” which is half bullshit, half truth. Yeah it’s cool, but if I can have one class I’m a rockstar at I’m going to take it. Let’s be real. But I didn’t even have to fight her, “Oh, you’ll be able to see it from a French prospective!” she said when she saw it on my list of classes I wanted to take. #winning . I was waiting for the prof today to say, “raise your hand if you’re American” and he waited until halfway through the class. It’s just me and another girl from the program who are americaines. I’m really looking forward to this class, because I don’t know if you know this…but I know my shit when it comes to American politics. I’ll just have to keep up with the NY Times.

I don’t get homework or any of that bullshit here. It’s wonderful. The French just absorb their lectures, writing or typing EVERY SINGLE WORD that comes out of the prof’s mouth. It seems so unnecessary to me right now, but I’m trying to keep up as best I can. If you’re not constantly writing in class I’m sure you stick out like a sore thumb, not that anyone can tell if their face is smushed into their computer or notebook the whole time. Because I can’t take notes and listen simultaneously very well, I went out and bought a little recorder to at least help me with the listening. It’s just the size of a cell phone, plop it on my desk, and then when I get home I can hook it up to my computer and upload them as MP3s to listen to later.

I’ve had quite a few very pleasant encounters with French students so far. Sciences Po has a great international student association that’s run by a group of French students. They’ve organized a whole bunch of welcome week type things already and have more stuff planned for throughout the year. In class today, I finally talked to some French students for the first time. I was sitting all alone, and since it’s such a cliquey type system that I explained earlier, if you’re alone that pretty much means you’re an international student. But today this nice group of girls sitting near me asked where I was from and how things were going. They actually knew where Wisconsin was, which was nice to not have to explain. I was in a class for 2^nd year students, and at Sciences Po they spend their 3^rd year studying abroad. So 2^nd years have overseas on their mind as they pick were to study next year, and apparently UW-Madison is one of their options. They were very nice, and I doubt I’d be able to pick them out of a crowd again, but at least I know nice people exist somewhere in that room.

But aside from school, life here if going very well. My friend and I went to the bus station to buy student discount cards today. For a onetime fee of five euro, you buy this card that’s good for five years, and you get super discounts on regional buses with it. There’s a variety of fares you can buy with it, but all I’m going to need is the two euro pass that’s good all day (so it’s essentially a two euro round trip ticket if it’s same day). I’m going to the beach this weekend, and without the discount card the fare is 7.20 euro….oh look this card just paid for itself. I’m not sure on the specifics of where these buses go, but I’ll definitely be able to get some use out of it. I don’t exactly have the money to jetset around Europe like some people do while they’re studying abroad so I guess I can start with Aix’s immediate neighbors before I go too far away.

My program went to Marseille last Saturday, which was awesome. Marseille just short distance from Aix and is the second largest city in France. Geographically, it happens to conveniently be about the same size as Milwaukee. But it has like twice as many people. Apparently it’s run by the mafia. Apparently there’s a ton of murders and crime and things like that. I don’t care to write about that, so if you’re interested, google it yourself. We toured a bunch of historical stuff which was super interesting. I was standing in the crypt of a church constructed in the 5^th century. We don’t have a 5^th century in the States. Also, it was crazy to look down over the city from the church we were at and imagine the Germans actually coming in and bombing it. Like much of Europe, Marseille has a lot of more modern buildings because it saw a lot of damage in the early parts of the 20^th century. After a day of sights we stopped at a beach and I got to stick my toes in the Mediterranean for the first time. It was amazing.


That’s all I feel like updating right now. I’m not attaching photos to these posts because it takes too long to upload them onto blogger. If you’re one of those people who isn’t on facebook and can’t look at my photo albums, let me know and I can send you a link to whatever pictures I have posted so far. I’ll be back here to write more once I feel like it again. I have a lot to share, but no motivation to write it out. Right now I’m only doing this because I got sick of fighting with my stolen wifi. Oh well.


Miss you all, probably. I don’t know who read this so I’m going to use statements like that. Nothing you can do about it.

<3

Ugh!

I’ve officially been in France for over two weeks, but it seems like so much longer. It’s been a rough two weeks.

Monday-Friday we’ve had an “intense” French class from 9-1. It’s really not that intense, and I don’t think I learned/improved enough to get the 3 credits it got me, but whatever. It was just a long time to be in class. And we’ve had all sorts of homework, as is to be expected.

In the afternoon there have been bank accounts to open, and other things of the financial sort. Administrative meetings to sit through. Paperwork to process. Shit’s complicated.

We’re all trying to pick our classes, and apparently that’s not allowed to be easy. There are plenty of classes I’d love to take, but UWM is not being nice to me. At least I’m finally in contact with the head of undergrad for poli sci who essentially told me to just not repeat classes, and they’ll make it work for me.

I’ve had “Welcome to France” class all week at Sciences Po, along with orientation meetings there. Today I went back and forth between the two universities at least twice because of places I had to be all throughout the day. Absolutely exhausting.

I miss Washington. It’s weird reading about things happening on the Hill and not having it be old news for me. It’s hard to be so up to date on things when it’s not part of my job.

I don’t have real internet. I need to be in the garden (which has mosquitoes, scary sounding birds, and is visible to my crazy old landlord) to get a signal, for the most part. In my room, I get it on one square foot of space on the windowsill. Sitting on top of my desk is not comfortable. I don’t know when I’ll have reliable internet inside the entire apartment.

But it hasn’t been all bad.

It’s absolutely beautiful here.
I’ve gotten to know plenty of wonderful people who are part of my program.
I’ve met lots of really cool international students at Sciences Po.
I have my Arrested Development discs to unwind with at the end of the day.
I’ve been practicing my French.
The classes I’ll probably be taking sound really awesome, and I start on Monday.
I’m going to Marseille tomorrow. I get to see the Mediterranean for the first time!

Update to come tomorrow when I get home from that adventure…

Apartment!

So it’s official. I’m moved into an apartment. Thanks to a deal worked out with a friend, dragging suitcases across town got a lot easier. Now, about the apartment…I posted these to facebook but I’ll just repeat everything for people who don’t look at that.

This is the dining area in the kitchen. The door on the left goes out to the amazing courtyard, and the stairs on the right go up to a double bedroom where two French students live. The cupboard under the stairs is full of dishes and pans.

The other half of the kitchen. I was pleasantly surprised when I found this place, because I was prepared for the fact that most French apartments have a mini fridge, a microwave, and two hot plates as a kitchen. So I was very excited to have a real stove, and a real oven. To the right, is a hallway which my room and another single bedroom is off of. To the left, is the door to leave the apartment and another single bedroom. The double doors off to the side are the living room.

…and this is that living room. Most apartments don’t have a separate living room, so this is nice. By the way, having all these nice things is only possible because there’s 5 people living here.

This is the hallway past the kitchen that the living room is to the left of. Our fridge, microwave, and some food storage the first thing on the right. Then the next three doors is the toilet (the toilet and the shower are always separate in France), and then two shower stall rooms. There’s also a full bathroom upstairs for the other two girls, so there’s no problems with that.

This is my room. The perfect size for just me.

Nice little sink, vanity, and storage…just for me.

The other side of my room. A nice desk area, more shelves, and an armoire that I have all my clothes in.

And then the garden. There’s even a fountain.

So anyhow…that’s my apartment. I’m a fan.

If you want to look on a map where I am, my address is 10 Rue du 4 Septembre. Don’t send mail there though.

If you want to send me mail***, please send it to:

Carly Wilson, Academic Program in Aix
30 Rue Victor Hugo
13110 Aix-en-Provence
France

***by mail, I mean letters. Not packages. If you want to send me a package, let me know. There’s more specific info you would need. And don’t send checks. They can’t be cashed here, and literally need to be sent back to the US before anything could be done with it.