La première semaine des classes! Jours 5, 6, 7, & 8...

This week was the first week of classes, and it couldn't have gone much better in my opinion =]

     On Monday we woke up early to go pick up our bikes from Vélocité, which is a free service that the city provides. People living in Angers can literally take out a city bike (vélo) for free from a few days to up to six months! I know, awesome, right? Biking to and from school shortens the time of the trip by a third, and it is so much fun to ride down these narrow streets (except for the cobblestone streets in the "médiéval" part of town near the château).

    We rode all over town that first day, which came back to bite us in the ass the next morning because the ride to campus is almost entirely up hill. (Which is a challenge at 8:00am, let me tell you)

    I also had my first French IV class on Monday.
French IV was a make it or break it deal, because it's no secret that I'm not the best at parle-ing le français... But as soon as we met our professor, Marie Legagneux, (who is just as fashionable and beautiful as you would expect French women to be) all of the worry was wasted. She is SO helpful and the class is mixed with the French III class, so most all of it is a review of grammar.  The best part though is that our textbook, workbook, and audio cd's were FREE! (the French I classes paid $250 for their materials...)


    Monday evening, everyone rode bikes up to the massive Carrefour on the edge of town. It was raining heavily, but we were all still excited about our new bikes! The place was surprisingly like a Super Wal-Mart, which I didn't really expect here, but apparently these super stores are quite common. They are typically placed on the outskirts of the towns.

    Anyway, the slip up of the day happened in the check-out line. I greeted the woman at the check out stand (which apparently you are not supposed to do, because that "establishes a familiarity that does not exist"), and though she was a little thrown off, she said her day was going well. I was almost perfectly through the check-out when she came across my bag of green beens (hericots verts) which I had forgotten to weigh. She very nicely allowed me to run back through the store and weigh them and print the bar-code, but when I returned, she was giggling with the girls in line behind me. I had no idea what they were saying, but they were all smiling, so I didn't sweat it too much.

   Tuesday, there was a nation-wide strike by the public services of France. Teachers, bus drivers, train conductors, safety and hospital workers, bankers, postal workers, etc, closed up shop and marched in the streets across France to protest the government proposed pension reforms that would effectively raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 in an effort to curb the countries national debt. Only a few trains ran, and all postal services were closed, from what I could tell all of the other services were still running to a certain extent. It was so interesting to see such an intricate part of French culture, people taking a political/social stand together and fighting in each other's best interest, not the government's

 We all experienced the strike (la grève) on our way to class, as the main avenue that we take to school was blocked off. Thousands and thousands of people here in Angers were chanting and began a march across the city. The line of protestors stretched for probably two miles! Needless to say this was a hot topic in our international business classes on Wednesday morning! We were reading the New York Times cover story on the strike when it was still 2am in the States.

   Wednesday night was the first of many 'Wine Wednesdays' that our group of St. Ed's students decided to create. With all of the cheap local wine labels available here, we decided that in order to find the ones that we like the most, we'd each bring a bottle to Wine Wednesday and we'd have a tasting.

    This is all fun and games for the Americans.. but you should know that here in France, it is a BIG faux pas to get drunk off of wine, or to even drink wine outside of meals. Wine is such a large part of their culture that our program director made a very passionate (heated) informative announcement about this aspect of French life.

   That same day, the French St. Edward's students began arriving at the residence. They are part of a program called First Year in France, through which they will spend their Freshman year here in Angers, and then spend the next three years at St. Edward's in Austin. When the first few of these guys arrived and heard about our little party, they laughed at us. For real. Just confirming that it isn't just a generational thing; the French really do take wine very seriously.

  Anyway, Wine Wednesday went of without a hitch and it was a blast! You've heard of "in vino veritas," right? Well, I would agree. People get real with you when they're drinking wine. There was never a lag in the conversation at the six conjoined tables that we had commandeered in our residence plaza.

   Thursday, yesterday, was  the longest day of the week. Class began at 8:30am and even though everyone was still exhausted from their bike ride, and still yawning, we started an interesting discussion on globalization (when are we not talking about this in some form or another at St. Ed's). We had a short coffee break and then watched a very interesting documentary called "Mondovino." It was about large American conglomerates attempting to take over the French wine industry which would change the traditional wine growing lifestyle here. The point of the film was to use the wine industry as an example of the impact that globalization is having around the world, but specifically in France. I was in love with the film (especially after my morning espresso).

   For lunch, we had a pizza party to officially meet and welcome the FYIF students. It was a lot of fun getting to talk to them, but they all want to practice their English, while we all want to practice our French! And the language barrier with some of them is... extreme. One already stands out though, and his name is Paul. Oh Paul.

   That afternoon for our culture class, we all ventured out to the train station (La Gare d'Angers Saint-Laud). We figured out how to buy tickets and learned what else we should and should not do. From there we sat out at a café and enjoyed delicious café au lait. One thing is for sure: I hated coffee before coming here, and for some reason, I'm loving it here. I think it's because here a café typically comes in a demi-tasse, or half cup, which is much easier to finish. To order a café that comes in a mug you would order a café grande. For some reason it just tastes better than any coffee I ever had in the states. At the café it was reinforced that there is no tipping here in France, the tip and the tax are both included in the total. And, a lot of places here will not take a plate until everyone at the table is done eating. The waiters will hover but will not bother you like in the U.S. If you want something, you ask, and if you want the check, you have to ask for it, because they'll let you sit there forever. The reason is that they don't want to ruin your dining experience. 

   After the café, I got some good shopping in at H&M. The fitted dress shirts there were on sale for ten Euros, so I bought two. I bought a pair of shoes so that I can finally fit in with all of the French, and I also bought a sweater. I think I'm slowly but surely learning how these French men dress themselves. At the café there had been what we assumed to be a club of some kind reading poetry to random people in the square, and at H&M there was another group outside chanting loudly in the plaza. It's such a weird thing to see demonstrations like these in the streets multiple times a day!

  Last night, we took a hand full of the French students out with us for college night. We started off at one of our favorite places: Kalypso. Kalypso has amazing flaming Cointreau shots. Now, I've done flaming Cointreau (a delicious orange liqueur made just outside of town) shots in this bar before. What you do is, light the shot, slap your hand down over the top of the shot, wait until the fire goes out and the cup sucks onto your hand, pick up your hand and flip the shot upside down, then flip the shot back over and take it. I have done this twice successfully in the past, mind you. Last night however, the bar was very crowded and our row of ten flaming shots were sitting lit on the bar for over a minute. Now, If you're going to slap your hand on one of these things, it should be within ten seconds of lighting it (before it gets too hot). After a minute and a half of being on fire, you can imagine how hot the shot glass and the Cointreau inside was. I successfully made contact with the shot, and then could not get it off of my hand fast enough!! I still took the shot, but afterwards, quickly made it to a sink for some cold water!

   What resulted from that shot was a third degree burn in the shape of a ring on my right palm. It is kind of hilarious, and it will be a very cool looking scar. Lesson learned? YES! There will be no more flaming shots in my future. It will be a fun, forever story of the time I spent here though.

  Today I visited a French pharmacy for the first time to get this thing checked out, and I had a very cool experience. Margot, one of the French students came with me to help with communication. For less than 15 Euro (10 dollars less than my co-pay to see my doctor at home) I was checked out by a physician, given information about the burn and how to take care of it, and received all of the necessary bandages and things for it. Can I just reiterate that I this was a pharmacy visit? I didn't even need to go see a doctor, and paid nothing except the low price of the medication and bandages.


    The physician did rule out my joining in on the kayaking excursion that everyone took today. But I then again, would three hours of continuous rowing sound appealing to you if you had a bubbling wound on the palm of your dominant hand? I thought so. I had no qualms about staying home! =]

   So today, I cleaned my room, did laundry, went downtown to exchange more American cash (which was a long process because no one spoke any English, but I was so proud of myself for successfully communicating!), ate out at a café, visited a patisserie, started my weekend's homework, and most importantly RELAXED! (which is probably the easiest thing to do here)

This post is already very long, and this is the (extremely) condensed version! Tonight, we are all going out to Les Accroche-Coeurs, a week-end long festival in town.
Pictures to come!

Kevin