Queen of Clubs

Monday night after hiking the Bastille, I came back to the house and went to bed a bit early. Tuesday morning I went for a walk and ended up taking pictures around Musee de Grenoble. After that I went to campus to see my test results. I placed into class B1.2 BIS. Yeah, I had no clue what that meant either. I’m in one of the intermediate levels.

My teacher is really nice and so are the other people in the class. It’s a pretty interesting mix of people actually. The first day of class only six of us showed up. There was me, a 20 yr old female american; Jose, a 29 yr spaniard; Merium, about my age from Spain; Holly, about my age from northern Ireland, but she speaks English; Andre, a Brazilian author of unknown age, but definitely older; and (shwou ci), from china who is about my age and an opera soloist. Since the first day a few more Chinese have joined our class. Understanding them in French can be a bit of a challenge at times.

It seems like an okay class. The stuff we talk about is interesting and some of the activities and exercises are too. Sometimes the exercises seem really easy, and other times they’re really hard. We get one free pass on a question, but only one day. The teacher gave us all a card to use as our pass. We’re learning a lot of interesting vocab which is nice. It seems like everyone in the class is for the most part pretty much at the same level. Possibly a few of the Chinese students are a little lower, but mostly at the same level.

So, Tuesday afternoon I went to a presentation about the activities available for students to do and then to class. After class there was an apparitif (I think it’s the equivalent of a reception). I found I really like talking and being around the international students. It’s probably because we have to talk in French since it’s our common language. But it gives me less tolerance for my fellow americans here since they all talk loudly in English when they could be speaking French and trying to use the language they’re here to study. I don’t know, it just seems the Europeens, or non-Americans, in general have a really different approach to life.

After the apparitif, I came back to the house for dinner. During the afternoon Sophie and Katrine left for Portugal, where they’ll be ‘till the 28th I think. Rose was, understandably, a bit sad about this. Her method of distracting herself consisted of making a rather fancy dinner and talking with Rachael and I for quite some time. After dinner Rachael and I both started work on our homework (we’re in different types of programs) in the kitchen. It took us a while to finish ‘cause we chatted a lot.

Wednesday was the first normal day of classes. I have class every morning from 8:30 to 12:30, except on Tuesdays when I have it from 12:30 to 4:30. Class went by surprisingly fast, it didn’t feel like it took 4 hours. After I grabbed some lunch I went with the girls in my program to un salon du thé. We talked for an hour or so there and then I headed to le Geant since I needed a notebook, paper, and a folder.

I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening doing my homework. And doing other little activities that I needed to do but had previously lacked paper for. Rose and Phillipe got back later than any of us expected (including them) and then they whipped up dinner quick, but it was still 9 before we sat down to eat. It was just Rose, Philllipe and I for dinner. Earlier Phillipe had helped me with a question on my homework and Rose explained an upcoming event to me... now, at dinner, it was quiz Liane time... I had to name everything on the table and everything we were eating. It was pretty cool, I didn’t know a lot of the words, but know I remember a fair portion of them. It was a rather fun dinner.

Thursday morning I went to class. Afterwards I hunted down a bookstore to buy a dictionary. It turns out, I need one. I bought a cute French-French dictionary since right now my biggest problem is not know what a word means and I thought it would be good to have. I swung by the house and accidently fell asleep on the couch for about an hour...

At 5 I went to a presentation of the Rally that was taking place Friday. Now, a Rally is - a scavenger hunt. That was the overall impressions I got from Rose when I asked her what it was. At the presentation, the guy in charged talked for... and hour and a half about the history of Grenoble. It was really interesting and fun (and in French :) I understood what was being said). At the end of the presentation he asked for questions (only nine people attended mind you). I asked What a Rally was. Merium asked When it was. Then I asked Where it was. It was really funny because he never mentioned the rally in his history talk. It turns out that the entire thing was to be a scavenger hunt for information about the history of Grenoble.

At 6:30 I was supposed to be at la mairie (the town hall) for a French-American get together to honor our countries friendships and to celebrate the fourth of July. I managed to get there at 7 and everyone was standing there listening to speeches looking bored. So I don’t think I missed much. Rose was there and I said hi. I talked some with the girls in my program, at this point I had finally managed to meet all of them. It was a cute little shindig.

Dinner Thursday, was a lot of fun. One of Phillipe’s old friends, whom he has known for 28 yrs, and his wife came to dinner. It was really amusing. Phillipe is the calming, funny, humorous clown here and it was obvious that when he was a kid, he was probably always up to no good. I was included in the conversation which was fun. (Rachael had other plans that evening and was out). Near the end of dinner a heated conversation started about the proper way to raise kids. It was fascinating and I understood the majority, though I did just sit quietly on the sidelines and listen. After dinner I worked on my homework. (btw, figs are delicious)

Friday I had class again in the morning. After class I went to Patrick’s office to ask a few questions and borrow a French-English dictionary. Then I grabbed a bite to eat and went to the Rally. A bunch of students and I found each other (like 10 of us) and none of us knew exactly where we were supposed to go. Finally one of the guys in charge came, late, and told us what was going on a bit.

This scavenger hunt was hard! First of all, you have to recall that I don’t care for scavenger hunts. I wasn’t any help in anything really. After a while I got bored and thought “maybe I’ll just follow the directions so I get to the right place in the end.” I walked off by myself, found that bookstore again and went in and bought a workbook my teacher asked us to purchase. Then I wandered a bit and found two guys I knew.

I joined them in their quest on the Rally. They were very dedicated... I knew the downtown area a bit so at least I was helpful at times. The two guys I was with were (ehuym?), who is Spanish and probably in his thirties to forties, and Fabio, who is Brazilian, married, and in his thirties. I spent the majority of the afternoon with them and it was rather fun. I felt there were slightly less creepy guys than there might have been if I had been by myself, though there was the guy that said bonjour 5 inches from my face as he walked by and the group of guys that “accidently” dropped a glass of what I hope was orange juice that got on my legs (Fabio let me use some of his water to get it off). But over all it was rather fun. During the hunt we stopped at the bar that has Cuef student discounts, one of the questions was about what student group met there. We met the bar owner and he gave us free orange juice. He spoke a number of languages and talked with us for a few minutes. When we were leaving, he said in Portuguese “Muto gato” or something like that... Later Fabio related this exchange and it became a big joke for the two guys... Apparently, the bar tender was telling him that I was very pretty. Whenever they brought this I’m sure the color red I turned was ... well I turned red.

Just past halfway through the scavenger hunt we looked at the time and saw that we were supposed to be done and at la mairie for a reception and we hopped on a tram and went there. We caught the end of the the speeches and were there in time for the group pictures. Apparently in the past there have been at least 50 people who make it to the town hall but normally a bit towards the 200 number. Well this year participation was way down.... 40 of us started... 14 of us showed up at the end. But it was a fun evening and Rose and Phillipe, who were both there, gave me a ride back the the house.

Rose and Phillipe had dinner plans so I made pasta and a meat sauce for Rachael and I for dinner. We had... a bit of an adventure while making dinner... We were heating the bread up in the microwave and our favorite plate since the bread was a bit hard... and well... the plate literally... exploded... And by that I mean shatter-exploded. Though my cool bread tower didn’t so much as topple... But we got it cleaned up and apologized to Rose about breaking the plate, she was just happy we told her. I guess other students haven’t mentioned stuff like that.

After dinner I left the house with Rachael, she was meeting some friends for a movie and I was going to go and meet the people who did the hunt. In the tram window was the first time I had seen what I looked like that day (the mirror in my room doesn’t work so well... it’s attached to the wall at about waste height). It was sort of amusing cause I was wearing the brown dress I brought, and was like OH, I do look kind of nice today. I found that a bit amusing, due to the comment from the bar owner. The people I was meeting weren’t there and I was tired so I just came back the house and went to bed.

This morning I made myself get up and get stuff together, but by the time I made it the the train station I had missed the bus to Le Vercors by like 2 minutes (as in I saw it drive off as my tram arrived, but still had to walk there and find out about tickets...). It was a little disappointing. I might just end up going with the Cuef excursion since that’ll be simpler, though it might cost a little more. I’ll have to see. It may be possible to go by myself on a Sunday, but I might as well just do the excursion since I’d go on the same day... I’ll need to decide that this weekend.

Since my plans for the day crashed and burned, I went to the St. Bruno market with Rachael and her friend Alex. I found this wallet I really liked, but it was a little on the expensive side and I don’t need a new wallet. After that I went to the Crepe cart in Place Victor Hugo.... (Caitlin, yes it was delicious... but I think that if I eat to many of those, my arteries will clog...) I got a crepe with Nutella, there was a bit more Nutella on it than was called for though. After that I hopped on a tram and came back to the house where I’ve been drinking un sirop menthe.

I think that I might take a nap and then a walk today, and just take it easy. Though I have to pick up a thing or two at Geant... I’m considering going up to the Bastille again tomorrow, but going in the morning so that it isn’t too hot. That or going to a church here. I couldn’t find a Methodist one, but I was thinking of asking Rose about it, maybe she’ll at least know a Christian one some where near.