Whirlwind

I've spent almost a week here and it's gone by so fast.  Today was a big day -- first day of prestage classes (orientation for American students) and first day I moved in with my new host family.

Annick Laveau, my host mom, is a kindergarten teacher who is so sweet and patient.  She has such a cute townhouse with two cats, two turtles, and apparently a hedgehog (herisson) in the garden.  Annick had the hardest time explaining un herisson to me in the grocery store and the cashier lady finally had to draw a picture which I thought was a porcupine...  She's petite and quirky and talks to herself a lot, but seems great.  Some of her former students poked their heads out from a nearby window and shouted, "Annick, Annick!"  It was adorable.

So Annick thought it'd be a good idea for us to take the tram back to her house so I could see the route.  I live the farthest away from town and need to take 2 trams.  Well unfortunately my bags weighed a good 70 pounds and dragging them through the city to get to the central tram station made my arms disintegrate into jelly.  It was so much worse than the weightlifting we do for squash.  So, so much worse.  And thank goodness I was absent-minded enough to leave one of my bags a the hotel by accident because we never would have made it back to her house in one piece.  And I got to practice my French on the phone with the monsieur at the hotel and successfully (I hope) asked him to store my bag til tomorrow.

When we got to her house I volunteered to go with her to the grocery store which turned out to be like a huge Walmart.  Despite all the chaos in there I felt more at home than in the Polygone mall in the center of town -- this hypermarche called Carrefour reminded me of Costco, my favorite childhood hangout place (but sans free food samples).   It turned out I was of some use because she forgot her grocery carrying bags in the car so I surprisingly was able to fetch them for her when she was in line, even though there were at least 4 other small red cars in the lot.  And then in line, I kept trying to say that at Mount Holyoke we rush around a lot and don't eat that well but instead of saying se hater (to rush) I kept saying je suis hatee which she thought was je suis Athee which means "I'm an atheist."  No wonder the man next to us kept giving me wide-eyed, strange looks.

So for dinner we had cheese ravioli and salad (they're not big on meat, which is a-ok with my "get slimmer in France" plan).  I've always wanted an older brother and now I get a host-brother, Hugo.  Annick and I have been getting along swimmingly but it's great to have a third person around.  He's pretty funny and explains things well considering how many times I usually say Je ne comprends pas (I don't understand) in a day.  It seems like he's in and out of the house a lot, as it should be since he's already 26.

I was surprised, they told me their great family defaut was that they eat fast.  And they were not kidding.  I ate about three pieces of ravioli and Hugo was already finished and Annick was about two bites away.  This flies in the face of everything people have been telling me about the French eating style.  I mean, my first dinner in France lasted THREE HOURS.  And the other MoHos and I were so jetlagged we could barely keep ourselves from nodding off.  But here chez Laveau, a meal is merely a necessity that needs to be done and nothing more.  I'm glad I didn't have time to daydream about 5-star French cuisine dinners every night because that is definitely not going to happen here.  In fact, it kind of scares me how little I thought about this trip until I was on the plane, and how few expectations I seem to have set for my semester.  But I think it'll be excellent for once to just go with the flow.

I've got to hit the sack because tomorrow we have classes again at 9 which means I have to leave Annick's at 8.  And then we have an excursion to an olive oil-making place and then clubbing at Le Fizz for a friend's birthday!

Bonne nuit.