Carnivalbi

I’m finally on vacation! I suppose I shouldn’t be so excited, since in some ways this is my second vacation of the semester… After the snow two weeks ago, the pipes that heat the Mirail district froze and classes were cancelled for almost an entire week. All the same, now I’m officially on break and enjoying my first real vacation in France!

Yesterday, Lindsay and I decided to take a trip to Albi. I’d already been, but it was plenty of fun to show Lindsay around. We went to the most important tourist spots in the city, the Cathédrale Saint-Cécile and the Toulouse-Lautrec museum. The latter was closed, sadly… You might think you’d publish that on the city website since it’s one of the biggest tourist attractions (but let’s not ask too much). We were about to search for a bar to sit down and relax when we noticed a gigantic crowd of people assembled near the main street of Albi.

Now, when we first entered the city, we noticed that some games and attractions had been set up and were wondering what could possibly be so special about this seemingly random Sunday in February. Suddenly, however, it seemed like we had been thrust into the middle of a circus: there were games everywhere, people in costume and a parade with floats in the street. What had we stumbled onto? And then we realized…

It was Carnival! We had no idea that Carnival celebrations would be going on in Albi that day, but they were, and we were lucky enough to be there for them. It was kind of a surreal experience seeing so many people out in costume in the middle of the day, and some of the floats were downright hilarious. (Note the photo below of the monk exposing his butt and the woman with the rolling pin…)

To finish off our day, a group of drunken clowns came up to us and tossed a fistful of confetti directly in Lindsay’s face. Obviously my first reaction was to help her in the best possible way… by taking a picture of it.

So it was a day of culture in all senses: the rich history and monuments of Albi… mixed with the drunken indulgence of Carnival. What more could we have asked for?

Even more snow

So I woke up this morning to find that my first post about the snow was totally premature… today there was actually a good amount of snow! At least 2-3 inches so far, and it still hasn’t stopped…

Now, it’s entirely possible that this will be the only time I see Toulouse covered in snow like this. So I decided to take advantage of it! The tram and bus lines may have been down because of the snow, but that didn’t stop me. I walked the 15 minutes to Arènes and hopped on the metro to Capitole to take some pictures of the Pink… or rather, the White City.

Snow’s a lot nicer when it comes on the weekend and doesn’t interfere with my life!

P.S. Here’s an update: Because of the snow, classes are cancelled until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon! Hooray for snow days!

Snow in the South

I woke up on Thursday morning to something very unexpected outside of my apartment window… there was snow on the ground!

     

Top: The view from my apartment window; Bottom right: the street near my bus stop; Bottom left: the Mirail campus. Snow everywhere!

I hadn’t seen snow since October, so I was quite excited. Sure, it was cold out, but snow in Toulouse was something I hadn’t been expecting and it was a nice surprise. Of course, snow always becomes a lot less beautiful once it causes problems, but this was only a slight dusting (by my standards) so I figured there wouldn’t be any problems because of it. Right?

Wrong!

I spent about three extra hours at the Mirail yesterday because of a severe four-hour metro shutdown between my metro stop and the end of the line near the university. There’s a bus line that goes to Arènes (the metro stop near where I live), but it was a zoo trying to get on. My friend Christophe and I waited over 45 minutes and watched at least five or six buses pass us by.

In the end, we decided to walk to Arènes. I can say now that I know how to walk to the university from my apartment, but it’s not pleasant… it takes between a half hour and 45 minutes, there are very few sidewalks, and when the winds make it feel like -7 degrees (Celsius, that is… in Farenheit it was 20), that just adds to the fun. In the end, however, we made it with all of our extremities intact and free from frostbite.

So thank you, snow, for surprising me here in the south of France, for the beauty you bring, and for all of the problems you never fail to cause!

Exam Week

It’s been over a month now since I’ve made a post here, so I’m long overdue for a new one. That, in part, was because I spent two and a half weeks at home for Christmas and New Year’s, which was wonderful for me. It was really great to see everyone again and spend some time back in my “old life.”

Of course, by that I don’t mean to suggest that one place is better than the other. That’s not true at all. It’s just… different. It’s strange living across the sea… I’ve always been so used to being able to get everywhere by car. It sort of enhances this idea that I have two different lives. I loved being home because I felt like I was really able to relax… it gave me a break from having to think about how to express myself and let me see a lot of the people I’ve really been missing. It’s good to be back, too, because now I’m back to work and continuing to improve my French, but I do miss being able to drive home to see my family whenever I want.

Speaking of work… unlike most American universities, French universities (or at least the Mirail) wait until after the Christmas holidays have finished to give their exams. Personally, I’m not sure I agree with this approach… it seems like the students, rather than spending their holidays studying, end up doing nothing and forgetting everything that they’ve learned and been practicing. Of course, as with just about everything here, “ce n’est pas mon choix.” (It’s not my choice.)

Over the past week and a half I proctored two exams and gave seven and a half hours of oral exams… so it’s been a lot of work. The oral exams were particularly frustrating because many of the students (about 80%, I would say) did little or no work over the course of the semester and had nothing to show for it. Moreover, they complained that they weren’t told that they had to go to workshops or do anything (which I find hard to believe). This seems to be an ongoing trend here… students like to complain a lot and find any possible way to get out of their obligations. That can be frustrating, but I try not to let it get to me. There were several students who were a real pleasure to interview and talk with as well.

On top of that, I have over a hundred exams to correct as well. However, the deadline for grading exams and submitting grades isn’t until February 27th (a month and a half from now — I can’t believe it!) so I have a lot of time to finish. What’s more important right now is that I plan my classes for next week. I’m a bit nervous, particularly for the US Civilization class that I’m teaching, but excited too. The classes for this semester are more focused on speaking rather than comprehension alone, so it’ll be exciting to be able to encourage the students to participate more frequently. We’ll see how things go…

P.S. I got a TV! But more on that later, once I actually get a cable so that I can watch it…

Albi and a French Dinner

Yesterday, Emma and I decided to take a trip to Albi, which is a city about an hour north of Toulouse in the département of Tarn. It’s not as big as Toulouse by any means, but it looks very similar… from the photos, I might not even think they were different places. What I liked about it, though, was that it was less hectic, so it was quite nice to visit.

     

First, we visited the Sainte-Cécile Cathedral, which was beautiful. As I’ve been saying constantly since I’ve been here, nothing is old in the States, so any time I see any sort of old architecture, it’s impressive to me. The church was really beautiful and reminded me a lot of Saint-Étienne here in Toulouse.

Next, there was the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec museum, which I didn’t know existed. Apparently he was born in Albi, which I also didn’t know. I’ve always liked his work and I remember studying him in high school, especially his horses. What I didn’t realize was that he also did a lot of lithographic prints… they had a special collection just of the advertisements that he did for circuses, plays, etc. Pretty neat!

After we were done in Albi, we took a train to Gaillac, where her boyfriend’s parents live. Xavier came to pick us up and bring us to his parents’ place, which was so very nice. I had my first ever real French dinner — and it’s just like we learn about in school! First the salad with bread, then the main meal, then dessert followed by coffee and tea. It was really nice, because we spent a lot of time really enjoying the food and each other’s company. It’s nice to be able to really take your time eating rather than rush through it all just to get away from the table.

Thanksgiving à la française

I knew that it would be hard to be away from my family for Thanksgiving. This was the first time ever that I haven’t been home for it — even when I was in Richmond, I always went home for it every year. However, what I wasn’t expecting is that this may have been the most spirited Thanksgiving I’ve ever had.

It all began with the Conversation Night that took place on Wednesday of last week. The theme for this was Thanksgiving and I was very excited about it, especially when we decided to do a hand turkey workshop and a “pin-the-Mayflower-on-Plymouth” game. We had a special area of the bar set up for making hand turkeys and another for playing our variant on pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. The prizes for the best turkey and closest Mayflower pinning were a package of Reese’s cups and a jar of cranberry sauce. Very American! It ended up being quite fun!

On the actual day itself, all of my classes were Thanksgiving-themed: my Applied Language students listened to a recording on Black Friday and my English majors had a dictation taken from a Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe and a recording about adding ethnic foods to Thanksgiving. I also gave each of them a mini-lecture on the history of the holiday and what it means to Americans. I don’t think I’ve ever been more in the spirit of things!

I was also lucky enough to be able to Skype with everyone back home and join them for a pre-dinner chat. It was really great to be able to see and hear from everyone since I couldn’t be there in person. It’s wonderful that technology can keep me so close even when I’m hundreds of miles away.

Finally, yesterday, Anna was kind enough to host a Thanksgiving dinner for the lecteurs. There was turkey, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, roasted veggies, cranberry sauce, and I made stuffing and a salad! For my first stuffing from scratch, it turned out okay — I added too much chicken stock, though, and it ended up being a bit too moist. For stuffing on the stove, though, it wasn’t too bad. The salad had Roquefort, pear, guacamole, and green onions. Not necessarily traditional, but kind of French and quite delicious! There was also a delicious pumpkin pie, a chocolate pie, and a fruit salad for dessert. A solid spread!

One of the things that we talked about last night was how it’s funny to think about the things that matter so much more to you when you’re away from home. Thanksgiving has always meant a lot to me, but being an American in France, where most people don’t know much about the holiday, it meant even more. You learn a lot about your own culture when you’re immersed in another!

Auchan

I’ve been experiencing Target withdrawals lately. I have to say, though, not having something like Target around has been good for my savings account. Still, it’s frustrating when I go to Carrefour (the grocery store nearby) and can’t find what I’m looking for. For instance, I needed construction paper for the Conversation Night tomorrow and didn’t know where to get it. So I asked Anna, and she told me to go to Auchan at the north end of the metro A line.

Auchan… is amazing.

Auchan is what would happen if Super Wal-Mart and Super Stop & Shop had a beautiful interretail baby together. And who would have thought that it would exist in France, of all places? It starts off as the biggest grocery store I’ve seen in France (and possibly anywhere) and then its shelves eventually branch off into other merchandise.

I was pretty excited that they had clothing at Auchan and hoped, for just a moment, that the clothes might be Target-quality. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed. The clothes weren’t particularly bad, but the prices were awful — as with all clothing stores in France. A bag of two poor-quality t-shirts was 18€! You can get five in the States for $10. No thank you — I’ll stick to H&M for now (the cheapest clothing store in France so far).

They have a large electronics section just like any Target or Wal-Mart, too. I’ve been tempted to buy more video games in French for extra practice, but I’ll wait until I get paid again. The prices are either the same or higher than in the States, but they’re in euros, so multiply that by the current exchange rate and suddenly I’m paying $52 for that video game I could get for $39 back home. Yikes.

In the end, I didn’t get much more than what I originally came for: construction paper, colored pencils, and scissors. (I’m leading a hand turkey workshop at the Conversation Night tomorrow — woo hoo!) I was taken by surprise and didn’t expect the place to be so huge. However, I plan to go back at least one more time before I leave, this time with a plan (so I don’t get lost in all of the awesomeness).

Son of a…?

Last night I went out with a few of the French students from my Master’s classes before heading off to two of the lecteurs’ crémaillères (housewarming parties), which was just awesome. The great thing about this group is that they want to improve their English and I want to improve my French, so we take turns speaking in French and in English. That way, everyone can take turns improving their second language without feeling like they’re unable to express what they want to say. Between the two languages, we always figure it out somehow.

When you have a group like this together, it naturally leads to some discussion about differences between the two cultures. One of the things that we talked about was curse words (because let’s face it, that’s what everyone wants to learn). So this entry is going to be about naughty words! You’ve been warned!

So one guy, mentioned that he’d been watching How I Met Your Mother (which I still haven’t really seen) and was absolutely shocked when they used “son of a bitch” as an insult. He said that he thought that would be the worst thing that anyone could call him. I thought that was sort of funny, since I don’t think that’s quite the worst thing I can think of… I’m sure there’s much worse. But it didn’t have to do with the strength of the curse word involved: he thought it was terrible because of the face meaning: “son of a bitch.” The expression was horrible not because it was insulting him, but because it insulted his mother.

That really got me thinking. Here in France, they really value family, perhaps a lot more than most Americans do. Most students go back home on the weekends to see their parents and it’s not surprising to hear that some students still live with their parents and commute to the Mirail, sometimes from as far as an hour away. So it makes sense, then, that they would take insults directed at their family a lot more seriously. In the U.S., young people seem to take the opposite approach: you’re always hearing teenagers talking about how they want to get away from their families. “Your mom” jokes were all the rage when I was in high school (and maybe they still are). From what I can tell, there’s a lot more respect for the family here.

Before I left for France, I found this funny video about how to speak French in one word. Here it is — watch it first if you don’t want spoilers!

The word is putain, which literally means “whore,” but as this girl mentions, the French use it constantly in a lot of different contexts. As an exclamation, it translates just like “fuck!” in English. I thought that was stunning: I hear my students say “putain” to each other all the time in class, often for no reason. At first I was really surprised, but as the guys explained to me last night, “putain” really isn’t all that vulgar to them.

And really, now that I’m thinking about it, why is “fuck” really that vulgar in English? It’s only the worst swear because we say it is. The word itself doesn’t have any particular meaning to us. In French, “son of a bitch” (which, by the way, is fils de pute, in case you were wondering) is one of the worst things you could call someone because of what it really means.

Remember, remember the 8th of November

Tuesday night was our third conversation night, and it was quite a good one. Our theme was to celebrate Bonfire Night, the 5th of November, which isn’t celebrated much in the States (but you might know of it from the film V for Vendetta). Of course, Tuesday was actually the 8th — hence our rewritten rhyme. The day celebrates the capture of Guy Fawkes, who had planted explosives beneath the British Parliament in an attempt to assassinate the Protestant King James I and replace him with a Catholic ruler. He was captured, and the plot failed; originally, the occasion was celebrated with bonfires, which is why it’s called Bonfire Night.

It was also Sophie’s birthday, so we made a point to mention it as many times as we possibly could throughout the night. She made up a quiz about Bonfire Night, and any student who wanted to answer a question had to come up in front and give their response; if they were wrong, they had to give Sophie a kiss. (The results were pretty funny.) We also made a hilarious effigy of Guy Fawkes by stuffing newspaper in an old shirt and pants and giving him a face with the traditional Guy Fawkes mask. I didn’t even think to take a picture of him, and I wish I had — it was pretty hilarious.

Most of the lecteurs left around 11:30 as usual, but one in particular stuck around and burned our effigy later on in the night. We’d wanted to do it, but were too nervous about getting in trouble with the police. Apparently, though, open flames in the middle of the streets don’t cause as much alarm as we thought. Maybe because all of the buildings are made of stone or brick?

Allez Toulouse!

Today I went to my first rugby game!

Now, I’ll start this off by saying that I know basically nothing about rugby. Tom and his friends were kind enough to invite me along and explain some of the basic rules for me, but I still don’t really understand. It seems to resemble American football somewhat, but I still don’t really understand why the players crowd together sometimes, why the ball goes flying through the air for seemingly no reason, and why they’re sometimes allowed to pick up the ball off the ground and then not at other times. Oh well. I’m determined to do my research before the next game and figure out just what this is all about. At any rate, it was a great first game for me: Toulouse beat Perpignan 21-17! Allez Toulouse!

What I did notice, though, is that rugby games here in France are remarkably similar to football games in America. It attracts the same kind of crowd and people act the same way. There were lots of people shouting and screaming and cheering at the players, which caused other people to shout and scream and cheer too. Everyone drank beer — one guy ahead of us in line even got pissed off because it was taking too long for him to get his beer. And, of course, everyone wore their team colors.

Now I really want a red and blue rugby scarf so I can show off my Toulouse spirit. (So European!)