La Bible de Mme. Rouchet

Well, orientation week has started and I've officially and successfully commuted to and from the IES building multiple times now! It's so easy; I honestly wasn't nervous doing it alone for the first time. However, this morning when I arrived at my tram stop, I realized that the ticket machine only accepts coins (currency here is similar to Canada in that there are €1 and €2 coins) and alas, I was coinless. The walk is far too long (6 tram stops) and I had given myself just enough time to get there with the tram. So...I exchanged money at a bar along the way to the next tram stop (easy enough). I was 10 minutes late but other students were up to 30 or 40 minutes late, which I honestly did not understand.

Next month I will be able to purchase a monthly pass at a discounted price (for people under the age of 26) and the price of my commute will be much more reasonable. A few hours ago I purchased "un carnet de tickets," which is a packet of 10 tickets sold at a discounted price. It's amazing how many "Tabac"s there are around the city (tobacco/cigarette stores that also sell magazines, candy, tram tickets, phone cards, and lottery tickets).



A lot has happened over the last two days...



Last night I went home feeling warm, accepted, and content. Even though I was running on 4 hours of sleep (designing this blog, writing the first entry, and contacting everyone took hours of my time Sunday night into the wee hours of Monday morning), I somehow managed to stay attentive through a 3 hour information session (by the way there were another 4.5 hours of information sessions this morning and 3 hours of review sessions) and a 2 hour walking tour of Nantes. We split up into small groups of 5-10 students and had a guide (an IES staff member or year long student who has returned for their second semester) take us to various places that students regularly visit:  a supermarket, the post office, phone store, various patisseries, etc.

We also saw historical and well known places/landmarks......



                                            .....like the opera house

  and "Place Royale"
(which is always lit up like this at night and is at the center of a big circular opening in the city that has lights in the cobblestone street that look like little arrows that lead you to this fountain!)








                            

                            and "Cathédrale St. Pierre et St. Paul"
                            (where masses are still held)




















These amazing landmarks are all within a 15 minute walk of my host family's house ("la famille d'accueil" = host family) and are even closer to the IES building which is just a few minutes away from centre ville.


After the tour, some students and I ventured around town to buy essentials at a local food market. I bought a few sandwiches to eat for lunch over the next few days (I ate one today and a chocolate croissant--both were DELICIOUS). 

Then I returned to my house and talked to my host mother for just under a half hour before we set the table together and then ate dinner with the rest of the family. During the conversation we had a hilarious misunderstanding. I was asking about the conjugation of a verb in French to use in a sentence when I was talking about cat allergies. My host mother thought I said a word that is pronounced similarly to "conjugasion" (conjugation). She thought I said "congélation," which means to freeze something. The running joke of last night was "la congélation des chats!!" (the freezing of cats)

A non! C'est pas bien!

After dinner (still last night), my host parents invited me to a neighborhood gathering (it's not a neighborhood, but it was a gathering of their neighbors). I was afraid to go but that morning in the 3 hour long information session, Mme. Rouchet (the administrative director of IES) told us to "accepter! accepter! accepter!" every invitation we received. So I gathered my courage and accepted their invitation. I made the right decision.

None of the 4 children who are currently living in my house could go because of their studies so I was the youngest person at the gathering by at least 10 years. Everyone there was extremely warm, welcoming, and excited to have me. Many people at IES have told us (the students) that "study abroad students are a gift to the French people...your curiosity and genuine interest in learning our language and embracing our culture is something we cherish and appreciate immensely." I saw this on all of the faces at the gathering.

One woman in particular changed the way I had viewed my situation. She is Brazilian and 6 years ago, without any French education, she came to France with others from her area for the Christian movement, Focolari (Focolare in English). They were very surprised that I was Catholic but hadn't heard of this movement.

Have any of you heard of Focolare? I looked it up here:

Focolare Info!

When they were explaining it, I feared it was evangelicalism; but it's less intrusive, I believe.

We talked for nearly an hour, me and this woman named "Marie Paz" (that's what it sounded like). She was incredibly nice and easy to understand because she didn't have a thick accent. She talked to me about integration and learning the language and learning the culture and it was extremely exciting and interesting. We got along very well--she told me I could come over anytime and I want to take her up on that offer.

At the party, we played "a game." Everyone picked slips of paper with different questions on them...about the new year, about what you liked about Nantes, and mainly questions relating to neighbors and relationships (neighbor = voisin). Once again my fear told me to sit out and listen to everyone else talk (it was 9:30 or 21h30 and I was also extremely tired), but they insisted I participate. So as to not refuse an invitation and because deep down I really did want to participate, I joined in the game!

I saved my question....

It means, "what do you most often ask your neighbors to do for you?" (when you go away)

I said that fortunately two of my friends live on my street and that whenever my family went away we asked them to water our plants and feed our cat...and it's very convenient that they live right there!

Everyone understood what I said and Marie Paz kept encouraging me and telling me what a good job I was doing. It was a nice feeling. She explained things to me that I didn't understand in the conversation (people were telling stories that I'd be able to follow until they used certain vocabulary I didn't know and I'd miss the punch line).

                                                    Anyways, there was a gathering

                                                                  because of this guy ->

                                                                                                         "La galette de rois" (king's cake)

The French people eat this cake sometimes weekly in celebration of "Carnival," from the end of the 12 days of Christmas until Mardi Gras. Inside the cake there is a little trinket (you have to watch when eating!) and if your piece has the trinket, you are the rois ou reine (king or queen)! There weren't any dangerous pieces of plastic in the cakes (yes there were plural cakes! and also a peach tart!) at this party, but tonight (Tuesday), the IES staff took us to a hotel restaurant to celebrate this tradition. We had slices of 2 different kinds of cakes, trinkets and crowns included (I didn't win! boo). We were also served wine and cidar.

Now I will explain the title of this entry. In our information sessions we were given a big, bound packet of information about IES, regulations, cultural differences, safety, expected behavior in host families' house holds, etc...Mme. Rouchet called it "her bible." Although it's only 35 pages (much shorter than the actual bible haha), I think it's safe to say it's pretty much every student's bible here. It has all the information we could ever need.

I must say "au revoir" for tonight because I have homework! VERY little reading and memorization of adjectives and their antonyms, but it's still work. Until next time....

Thanks for reading.

Bien affectueusement,

Monica