Virtually Home

Okay, so not as dramatic as "Veni, vidi, vici", but I guess it'll do. Today was a tremendous day for me. I accomplished, mostly today, all the things I wanted to get done in the first week of my stay here. It just took a lot longer than I initially thought. I was able to enroll (or, mostly, I'm still missing one form), get a student ID made (which took all of thirteen seconds while the ladies helping us played a video game), pick up my checkbook, activate my Carte Bleue, transfer money between bank accounts, find a recharge card, learn how to recharge my phone, and, as a bonus, found out that the package my mother sent me over three weeks ago (probably) didn't get lost after all. In other, unrelated news, today I saw a 4-wheeler in the middle of downtown Bordeaux. Totally incongruous. And then I ran into the guy who owns the neighborhood pizza joint, who we've talked to at his restaurant a few times and have run into in multiple situations. I guess tha...

Today I left the apartment with the full intention of finally completing my administrative enrollment and getting my student ID card made before I leave town this weekend. So, I hopped on the tram in time to get there about 30 minutes after the office workers were supposed to come back from lunch -- I figured I'd give them some time to NOT be back when they were expected...since that seems to be what's expected. And, of course, the tram service was "interrupted", since it so often seems to be, a few stops from my apartment, for a "suspicious package". At least, that's what I translated it as -- I hope I was correct. I guess it was a terrorist scare. Anyway, we had to disembark, and we walked what google tells me was 2.3 km to school, on the way passing the "suspicious package" which was completely invisible, but roped off and sort of swarming with police who only seemed to be keeping foot traffic away, and not really looking at the problem at...

The last few days have been pretty un-noteworthy, which I guess explains the lag in posting. I guess I've mostly been playing guitar, watching Star Trek: TNG and X-Files, and surfing YouTube. For instance, today I finally heard about President Obama's speech for the first day of school. That's one frustrating thing about living abroad -- I keep not being apprised of presidential addresses or  major pop culture events until way after. Most of what I have to show for yesterday involves successfully finding the laundromat, which was about a 3/4 of a mile from my apartment. I know there's one closer. In fact, I remember walking by one a few days ago and remarking aloud to my roommates that we should remember where it was, in case we needed it. As it turned out, we did have need of it -- and I didn't remember where it was. I'm sure it was closer than the one I found, but I didn't want to invest a lot of time and energy into the hunt when I still had to fetch...

This morning I woke up to find that the hall of records across from our apartment was, for once, flying a French flag. One of the things that is a little strange about living here is that I really only see flags on official buildings. People don't hang flags in front of their businesses, schools, or homes like they tend to in the States. I'm not sure whether that makes any kind of meaningful statement about patriotism or not. The other thing about the flags here is that they seem to be a lot thinner than we make them. I think the photo sort of illustrates that well -- all the flags are transparent. Yesterday, my roommate Alex turned 22. We went out to a really nice Indian restaurant not far from our place, and had some korma lamb, some chicken vindaloo, a vegetable I can't remember the name of, some rice, some naan, and a tasty bottle of Bordeaux. It was really my second time to go out and have a sit-down meal since getting here, and the first was pizza with Maria'...

There were a lot of topics I was thinking about blogging about, and I realized they all had to do with cleanliness, mostly. So there's your theme. THEMED! Today, I waged war on the apartment, which, for some reason (either my particular landlady or the European custom) was not cleaned before I moved in. Until now I'd been sort of cleaning things as I could with whatever products and materials were available to me. Today, I went to Monoprix and went sort of crazy on the cleaning supplies. I got back and vacuumed with our strangely-shaped and relatively inefficient vacuum cleaner. Then I Swiffered. And then I Swiffered again. I cleaned the bathroom(s) and the kitchen, and every available surface, really. It made me feel a lot better about my life, but the apartment is still not up to my usual cleanliness standards. I'll continue the campaign tomorrow, maybe. Maria cooked some delicious risotto with sundried tomatoes and mushrooms and chicken, and made a salad with blueber...

So this photo doesn't actually have anything to do with today, but since I didn't take any good photos today and they have been such a hit...Well, it's a shot I took at St. André yesterday as the organ concert was sort of ramping up. I spent the day mostly at home. I did have an adventure to the post office while trying to mail some stuff internationally, which turned out to be a sort of spectacular demonstration of either my incompetence or theirs...but probably both. When I walked in, I looked around and decided I should probably get in line. Then I was promptly yelled at to use the automated machine. Having had several frustrating experiences in France that were based around the apparent unwillingness of French people to use automated services when they could otherwise be helped by a person, I got out of line and made a brave attempt. The machine, predictably, spoke French. Probably better than I do. I navigated my way through the buttons -- yes, I want to se...

which means that all of the churches and public buildings were having events, giving tours, and the museums all had free admission to the public this weekend. I missed out yesterday. I spent most of the day inside playing guitar, except for one trip to the riverside to indulge my childhood dreams. The other day I got a (probably) silly idea to start learning to skateboard. Not like the kind of skateboarding I wish I'd learned to do when I was still young enough to learn it, but just kind of A to B. For fun. So that's what I did yesterday afternoon. It went surprisingly well, except for my being completely right-side-dominant. I am virtually incapable of balancing if I use a left-handed stance (right foot forward) so the act of propelling myself forward is exhausting, since I can only push with my right foot. I'm not sure if that made any sense. Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and came home happy. Maria came home from her trip last night, and the three of just kind of hung out a...

The last few days, Maria's friend Patricia has been visiting from Austria. They met when they both lived in Ecuador, and it was convenient to visit now that everyone's in Europe. I had a good time getting to know her, and this morning they left for Spain together. I woke up this morning -- er, afternoon -- feeling strangely productive. I went straight to the mass transit office and bought a tram pass for the year. The "student" pass turned out to be more like the "young people pass" with an upper age limit of 28. If you pay all in advance and sign up for 12 months, you end up saving about 90 euros off of a monthly rate. Which ends up more thancovering those extra two months I won't be using when I return back to the states. One of the weird things about France is that, for everything you need a photo ID for, you have to bring your own. This is things like passports, student IDs, tram passes. But it's not as much of a hassle as I'd think in the US...

Yesterday I went to a really cool book store called Mollat, where I found a lot of interesting but inexpensive books. I ended up buying Le Petit Prince , just because I had started it in high school but not been allowed to finish it. I also bought Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal , and also Une saison en enfer and Illuminations by Rimbaud, plus an anthology of Verlaine. I figure there's not a better time to sit around reading French poetry than now, as the weather gets steadily more rainy and less warm. It's already proving excellent for my vocabulary. As for Le Petit Prince , that's just cute, and full of life advice. I think I got four books for 11 euros. Excellent.

Everything you can buy in Bordeaux is smaller than almost anything you could buy in Oklahoma. This is most frustrating where it concerns bottled beverages. It's kind of maddening where it concerns milk, as Alex has adopted it as his comfort food, and virtually every time I go looking for milk, we're out again. The last time I went to the grocery store I bought a pack of 6 cartons of milk (altogether maybe it's a gallon -- I'm not sure why they don't just put it all in one carton/bottle if they're going to package them 6 at a time). The only reason I'd been delaying purchasing milk like this is that it's stored at room temperature in the grocery store. I guess some of the milk in France is pasteurized at an ultra high temperature, which makes it okay to keep out instead of refrigerating, but that's sort of contrary to my (I'm sure) thoroughly American idea of how dairy products should be treated. Anyway, it's not just buying beverages. It'...

I just got back from a belated excursion to get food. There's this cultural difference between France and the US that I still can't get used to. You know that time of day when, in the US, only those privileged enough to have stable, 9-5 jobs get to go home for the day? Yeah, everyone gets off of work at that time in France. The strange thing is that, except for the nicer restaurants, which are open later because people seem to eat dinner around 7 and for a couple of hours, only businesses owned by foreigners are open at night. You can always find kebab in this city -- always. And almost always a conversation with the clerk about the oddities of moving to a foreign country while your fries are cooking. Anyway, so I was looking for somewhere that was still open and would sell me a sandwich of some kind, when I finally came across a place. They were pretty well out of sandwiches, as it was very near to closing time, so I picked one that kind of looked like egg salad, even though ...

I woke up today feeling a lot better. I have a lot more energy and I can breathe -- probably this is the result of my finally having started the pack of antibiotics I brought to France for just such an occasion. I was kind of loath to use them, since now that they've been consumed I don't really know how to get more. I guess the important thing is that I'm better. Maria and I went to the university this afternoon to get the results of our placement test, and we both placed into the highest level of French as a second language. We both prefer to take real classes for French people, so we went to the office of international relations to ask them what to do, and found an uncommonly helpful person in the office, who told us some things. We can't do anything until Monday, but starting then things can begin to happen. In theory. I have to present proof of health insurance to get a student ID, and I can pick classes online at a website she showed me. Apparently we just show up...

I ended up napping on Sunday after we met with Bernadette, and really didn't do much the rest of the day aside from sleep and watch Star Trek: The Next Generation on my computer. We woke up early and took the tram to the university, where we waited in a sea of non-French humanity to take a really disorganized placement test. We actually took it at Montesquieu, which is the other university just across the tram rails from ours, in a huge auditorium designed by someone who thought a 60s-ish geometric pattern would be the absolute coolest theme in the world. The sides of the auditorium cut in and out as if the room could be folded from front to back like an accordion. The ceiling was covered in protruding 4-sided pyramids. The long desk for panel discussions at the front was even cut in triangles. The tables themselves were interesting, with chairs connected to tables like you'd expect in a large lecture hall -- except that the chairs were actually connected to the table BEHIND yo...

Yesterday we sort of delayed going to soccer until it was time for kickoff of France vs. Romania. Alex and I made some stir fry out of some bell peppers and mushrooms and chicken beforehand. The atmosphere at the pub was a lot different than it had been for the Bordeaux-Marseille game. I was expecting an even bigger turnout because it was the French national team, but my friend Marie, who is from Bordeaux, tells me that les Girondins et l'Olympique are two of the biggest teams and so everyone is interested in seeing the game. Anyway, Alex and I watched the game for a while and later were joined by Maria. I really much learn the rules of soccer -- again, we scored one more time than they did but our goal wasn't counted for some reason I didn't understand. The game ended at a 1-1 tie, which I guess is okay in the preliminary world cup rounds? Again, I was expecting penalty kicks or something. Afterward we wandered over to Place de la Victoire yet again and met some oenologist...

Even though last night was Friday, we were all pretty exhausted from the week. Alex is sick, and he's been sort of on and off as far as how well he feels from hour to hour. He wanted some rest, and having been up until 5 something the night before, I was inclined to agree. But Maria and I went out to buy her some ciagrettes and ended up getting them at the bar downstairs because all the shops are closed by 9, and that was about when we left. We ended up meeting some really nice people there who invited us to go with them to the rum bar at Place de la Victoire, which is apparently the cool place to be at night in Bordeaux. I hadn't noticed this particular place because it isn't right on the square, but maybe a block down a side street. So after my initial confusion (I thought I understood "rum bar" but the reality of such a place wasn't with me so I assumed I was misunderstanding), we walked over that way. Place de la Victoire is two tram stops away on the way ...

Yesterday Maria arrived with her mom around three, and we all sort of got acquainted and they looked at the apartment. When they went to get Maria's stuff from their hotel, Alex and I took our backpacks to Auchan for the first real grocery buying trip. You may find it hard to believe (I certainly do) that after all the times we've been to Auchan, we didn't really buy much food to keep around the house. We got kind of a lot of stuff, including things to make a couple of real meals, which is good. There was something that Alex wanted brown sugar for, and that's when we ran into our biggest grocery store problem -- the sugar aisle. I didn't see anything that literally translated to "brown sugar" - but there was some sugar that was brown. It was labeled pure cane, though, so I'm not sure that's the same thing. Anyone with knowledge of French sugar selections should totally jump in, here, and let me know what's up. We had a brief conversation with o...

I think I forgot to mention the best thing about Tuesday, and that was that, on the way home from the university, Alex and I got off at a random tram stop and looked for some food. We ended up stopping at a kebab place called Chez Abidine, where we sort of made friends with the two employees there. One of them had spent about ten years in California and so spoke good English, and the other spoke no English at all. So we all conversed back and forth in both languages, and in the end they gave us a discount on our food, and punchcards (cartes de fidélité in France) with more punches than we deserved. They told us to come back soon and they'd make us tea. It was sort of the first time that anyone who lives here in Bordeaux (aside from Bernadette, who Alex still hasn't met) has even tried to have a conversation with us, so it was nice that they were so friendly. It gives me hope for actually establishing relationships with people, once we start school and come into contact with peo...

So yesterday Alex and I went to the university, and we found it closed just like before, but this time with a sign on the door that said "Nous sommes exceptionellement fermée aujourd'hui". I saw it and started laughing, because literally I took it to mean "we are exceptionally closed today". I think what it meant was that there was an exception to their regular hours, but still amusing after two days of failure. We went back this morning, hoping to catch them before lunch because they're closed each Wednesday and Friday afternoon. We found the same sign on the door. After sort of wandering around campus, we came back to check again, and there was still the sign. Luckily for us there was a French person showing some newly-arrived Asian exchange students the door and explaining that it was closed -- when someone exited the "closed", but well-lit and transparent, office. She walked upstairs and we all sort of followed her. I explained that we needed t...

Most of yesterday wasn't super eventful. I went to the university in the afternoon, and found the office of international relations, only to find that, despite the clearly marked hours next to the door indicating that it would be open, it was in fact closed. No one could tell me why. I even stopped some American exchange students to ask them, and they said they had no idea because their program was independent from the rest of the exchanges that the university does. So, since I was still within the hour in which one is allowed to reuse one's tram ticket, I went home. It was disappointing to me that I couldn't get a jump on getting my student ID card. I am beginning to fear that I will have to take a passport photo to them -- and the extras that I had made for this trip got packed up during the move out of my apartment at OU. At any rate, there are a lot of things I'm paying a lot more for without a student ID than I will with one -- the tram, for instance, which I'm...