Au revoir, Angers.

I am so glad to be out of Angers, CIDEF, and my host family. Actually, just CIDEF and my host family. The actual city of Angers (and most of the people in it) is rather nice.

Friday night was the “Soirée International,” which I had pictured as somewhat similar to Ste-Anne’s theme nights, specifically Soirée Anglaise, which is everybody’s goodbye night. This was not true, due to the fact that a) most of these people will be back in classes next week and seeing each other, b) we don’t all live together and its not total immersion so people don’t bond as much, and c) unlike at Ste-Anne, there is actually stuff to do in Angers, so we don’t have to rely on our program for social events.

So we stopped by for half an hour but it was just the chorus singing and we left in time to be at the Falstaff (our favorite bar) by nine, which Kat (the bartender/owner) had asked us to do. We got a booth and sat down, and a few minutes later Kat turned off the lights and the music and brought out a brownie/cake thing with candles in it and the whole bar sang Happy Birthday to me – Kat wanted to celebrate my birthday because when it actually was my birthday, she didn’t know.





The brownie/cake



It was also sort of a goodbye party. Scott did his part and bought a “meter of beer” (yes, they exist) for himself, me, Vaune and Chris as a goodbye gift to Vaune and myself. It was pretty funny.



We also got delicious fries from the kebab place next door.


Vaune and I were both tired so we left around 11 and walked home. We found we can pretty much walk home together, and then I have to go a little ways by myself to get to my house. Good thing to learn – on our last night in Angers. I called Alexis and we got to talk for a while which was nice, because we haven’t been able to in a few days.

Saturday morning I went downstairs to take my shower and Madame was like, “Make sure you open your shutters. You can’t clean a room in the dark.” This woman is obsessed with me opening the shutters because she assumes that when the shutters are closed that I must have every light in the room on, burning her energy bill into oblivion. Which is not true. So I took my shower and went upstairs and got dressed and came down for breakfast. She was walking in the door - she had gone outside to check and make sure I had opened my shutters. So I get down there and she’s like, “I TOLD YOU TO OPEN YOUR SHUTTERS. STOP WASTING LIGHT.” I tried to explain to her that I did not exactly feel comfortable toweling off and changing into my clothes with the shutters wide open for everyone to see, but this apparently was wildly unreasonable and she just kind of huffed around for a bit, and then brought it up again. She was like, “You must not use the lights in daylight!!” Yes, Madame, but I am not giving a free show to your neighbors. I don’t know why she couldn’t grasp this. And I can’t believe she went out and checked.

When I told her I was leaving at 1:19, she asked me if I was having lunch. I told her I would get lunch at the train station. She was like, “Well normally, Bobbie, people eat lunch at noon.” I told her it was okay and I would get something there, but this, too, was unacceptable. So she told me I had to eat lunch with them. And the grandchildren were over for lunch. The boy is little and cute, but the girl is older and loud, rude and obnoxious beyond belief. So that was already making me unhappy. Then lunch was peas and meat. Guh. Madame was screaming at her grandchildren, who acted as if she didn’t exist, and then she would just sigh loudly. I’ve noticed she’s just incredibly rude to everyone – her husband, her daughter, her grandchildren, me… Anyway so then it was time for dessert and she took my plate, which still had a couple peas and all the pea juice on it and she was like, “In France we clean our plates.” I wanted to smack her. I wanted to say, “Oh yeah? Well in the US we don’t wipe up pea juice with stale bread.” Instead I just said I don’t like wet bread, which is true, but she just sighed in agony at my primitive rudeness.

All through the meal Vaune had been texting me, because her family totally ditched her and she didn’t have a ride to the train station. She was going to take a cab, or meet me at my house and take the bus with me. She couldn’t decide. I was telling M et Mme and Madame was like, “Well some host families are really rude.” YES THEY ARE.

The pièce de résistance, however, was at the end of the meal. Madame was like, “Sometimes, I just say what I am thinking. It’s a good thing. Any tension between us, it’s forgotten.” Sorry, woman. I have already filled out my host family evaluation. Too late.

Finally, I got on the bus and managed to maneuver to the train station with my luggage. Chris and Debbie had come to wish us farewell, which was really sweet. I’m really going to miss Chris. The train only stops in Angers for two minutes, so that is all the time we had to get ten people and their luggage onto the train. But we did it, assembly line style, and settled in for our ride. Two hours later, we were in Paris.

Madame B talked at us for half an hour in the train station, which was a bad move as no one could hear anything she said. Finally she gave us cab money and we went and waited in the taxi line, which took another half hour, especially because cab drivers did not want to take me with my big suitcase. This one guy was like, “It won’t fit.” I was like, “Just look, it will fit right there.” He said, “It’s too tall.” It obviously would have fit and I tried to show him and he just cut me off and was like, “I know my car!” I thought, “Okay, if you don’t want my extra two euros for an extra bag, so be it.” I waited until a nice guy came along and he took me. Good thing, too, as he drove faster than all the other cab drivers and I got to the CISP Kellermann first and had the lowest cab fare (yes, we are staying at the damn hostel again, for two nights until we move into the Fondation on Monday – the same day that classes start… classes that we haven’t registered for yet).

I went upstairs and dropped off my bags and waited for Vaune to arrive. Once she did, we sprinted out of there and two the closest Metro stop. After changing trains about five times, we finally arrived at Place de Clichy, on the other side of Paris, at about 6:30 – only a half hour behind schedule. Erin came and got us and took us to her tiny one room apartment, complete with bed, bathroom, stove, washer, and fridge. Impressive, for a room smaller than most singles.

She and her friends Matt and Veronique had made pasta for us! It was delicious. We had spaghetti with tomato pesto sauce, and cheese and olives and tomato, and dessert. And wine. Erin said, “I made this kind of weird meal… because you look vaguely Italian so I thought you would like it.” This is true. She did good.

After that we went home, internetted, and then crashed in our tiny rooms. This morning I think breakfast made me sick. Also a man yelled at me for the way I ladled my pudding. Madame Gilot has shifted shapes and come to Paris. He finished by saying, “Is that how you do it at your house?” in a snide voice, as if I live with pigs. I told him, “At my house, we fat Americans don’t eat chocolate pudding for breakfast..”

Now Vaune and I are doing our laundry and dreading our meeting with Madame Beaufort this afternoon. Classes start tomorrow, as well as moving. Interesting.

Locked out

Let's try to catch up.

So since Vaune and I had been having some host family dining issues, we chose to go out for a deluxe evening meal on Thursday night. We put on our Thursday best and sashayed all the way to… McDonald’s. And it was joyous. We had been dreaming about it all day, ever since Vaune had suggested it during class and we looked up the closest “McDo” online.

I would say that the most notable feature of the McDonald’s is that a quarter pounder with cheese is, in fact, called a Royale with cheese. All you Pulp Fiction fans, rejoice. Vaune and I both ordered the “Royal Bacon,” which was a burger, toppings, and a giant, round slice of bacon-like meat. Another notable fact is that Vaune is a vegetarian, and yet consumed her Royal Bacon with the utmost enthusiasm. As did I.

Our delicious meal


Vaune says a joyous goodbye to vegetarianism, joyfully.


Me, imitating Vaune, and also enjoying McDo.


Me, demonstrating my distress at the existence of a "Croque McDo," which is the McDonald's version of a Croque Monsieur, which is kind of like a grilled cheese sandwich with ham in it.


Mmm.


Aftermath.


After we decimated – nay, annihilated – our meal, I said to Vaune, “Now that we have eaten food that will undoubtedly make you sick, let’s go drink!” And so we headed to the Falstaff.

We met up with Chris I and Chris II, as well as our new French friend Antoine. Katie and Kristine showed up later. Around 10 PM I decided I was tired and started to head back to my house, only to discover about halfway there that I did not have my housekey. I texted Vaune and then continued home to commit attempted breaking-and-entering. It failed, and I walked back to the Falstaff, where Chris grabbed me and we ran to catch the 11:23 bus. At 11:22 we resigned ourselves that we were not going to make it to the Ralliement bus stop in time, and so went to… McDonald’s. Chris got a McChicken and I got a McFlurry. We walked back to Ralliement, forty minutes before the next bus would be there, so we sat down in the doorway of a boulangerie because it blocked the wind. One woman asked us for a light, and we happily obliged with our new Falstaff lighters, given to us by the bartender/proprietor/our friend Kat. Another boy came and talked to us and got very excited about basketball and the Celtics and almost made us miss our bus.

At 12:47 we boarded the bus and eventually arrived at Chris’s house. We quietly snuck in, trying not to wake his host family, because there are “no visits without prior permission” and I am sure that includes strange girls sleeping in your bed, regardless of incompatible sexual orientations for both parties. We got ready for bed and then Chris told me true ghost stories about his childhood home. I thought I was going to pee myself. We went to sleep in Chris’s giant comfortable bed, although I didn’t sleep very well. We woke up at 6, and he snuck me back out. I took the 6:30 bus to Ralliement, and then walked a half an hour back to my house. Monsieur wasn’t awake yet when I got there, so I sat outside and read Infidel until I heard him come outside to get the mail. This was part of my ingenious plan, because it meant that I would not have to knock because the door would already be open and I would not have to admit that I had forgotten to put my key in purse. I walk in, smelling of smoke, wearing day old clothes, and looking like a zombie, and Monsieur just says, “Bonjour!” and smiles. Grace à Dieu Madame wasn’t up… she would have made fun of me and lorded it over me for the next day. I went upstairs, grabbed my towel, took a shower, ate breakfast, and jetted to school.

Angry at host family

I am started to really not get along with les Gilot - Mme yelled at me because my shower this morning was an incredibly wasteful four minutes long. She shouted, "DEUX MINUTES!" Two minutes is not a shower, woman. Their food is horrible, as stated. Mme blames me for stupid things that M does every day - such as leaving lights on and not re-adjusting the shower head. I am so sick of her reproachful stares at the fat lazy wasteful American. She yells at me every day to open my shutters (to let in natural light so I don't use electricity during the day) - it does not occur to her that I might want to be in the dark to, say, take a nap. I know I only have to stay with them for a few more days, but the last few days are always the hardest.

Vaune's family is worse - she tries to be as polite as she can at dinner but they never include her in conversation so she never says anything, and then this morning the woman told her, "If you're not happy here, you can leave. Either way, don't eat dinner with us anymore, you're too rude. You will eat dinner an hour before we do, alone, or you will move out." Vaune complained to the program and the woman blew her off because we're Americans so we must be rude. French people expect it. They think Asians are reticent - if Vaune had done exactly the same thing but was Chinese, they would never have said she was rude. I think she and I are going to eat dinner together for the rest of the week, because I can't stomach rillettes ("potted meat"? It's like smushed pork) spread on toast and capers wrapped in ham one more night.

More on Vaune's troubles: http://degage-byotch.blogspot.com/2007/09/host-family-newsflash.html

EDIT:

In response to Kathy's comment:

"Whatever happened to the Korean student who was staying with Mme. and M. when you arrived? It seems like it would be easier if there were two of you..."

Claire avoids us completely. She doesn't eat with us because she can't stomach French food - it's too rich for her. She has gravitated toward a group of Korean friends, and she isn't in my class anymore. So I maybe see her once a week. And, as I mentioned earlier and as Vaune notes in her blog, French people are huge closet racists and have this preconception of Asian people that they are very reticent and quiet and keep to themselves, so they expect Claire to be quiet and they expect me to be loud and intrusive.

Cast of characters

Yesterday was boringland – lunch and laundry and writing an essay – so today I am going to take a page out of Vaune’s book and write about the main characters of my month in Angers, which is coming to a close.

Vaune



Vaune goes to Tulane, although I did not know her until this trip. We spend a lot of time together (since she got over the fact that I talk alot, and fast, and I got over the fact that her being mean is just her sense of humor) shooting back and forth sarcastic insults and generally bonding in an us-against-the-world fashion. When we get back to Paris we plan to split a fridge and make lots of fruit salad.

Chris



Chris goes to Central Michigan University, and is my resident compatriate in all things marginalized. He is hilarious and keeps us all from going insane. He is also the best dressed of the Americans.

Katie



Katie and Chris are somewhat inseparable. Katie goes to Notre Dame, loves the word "skank," and finds my way of expressing shock and surprise very hilarious. She and Vaune share a passion for Kinder Bueno, a type of candy bar that is not as good as they think it is.



Scott (pictured with Katie)



Scott is a man I met in a bar. This may sound strange, but it isn’t. I saw him at the Falstaff and thought he might be cool so I sat down next to him, thus inspiring Vaune’s description of me in her blog : "Fast-talking, sharp-shooting Bostonian. Known to: highjack people at bars and turn them into close friends. Also: has very poor eyesight. Could these last two facts be related?" Scott goes to the University of Missouri in St. Louis, and is spending his year studying at La Catho in classes with French students.

That’s about it for the moment. Gotta go to class and turn in my paper. And once I get to Paris, there will a whole new cast of characters.

Addendum

As a note, if you would like to read more about Tulane adventures in France, I suggest you check out "Dégage!" It is my friend Vaune's blog. Many of our adventures overlap. The title means "disengage" and it is what you say to overeager dogs or homeless people who touch you.

http://degage-byotch.blogspot.com

"Dégage!"

Still not much going on. It’s the weekend, so mostly staying up late and sleeping in. Also, working on my project that is due tomorrow.

I am starting to get really fed up with my old people. I am abundantly grateful that I do not have to stay here for a semester or a year, like many of the people I have met. I could not stand living with them for that long. I am not even sure if I am going to make it another week.

Volume I : The Food

The food is bizarre. We start out with an appetizer. Sometimes it is a salad, which is generally good, but the dishes get weirder and weirder as the month goes on. Sometimes it is burnt toast. Sometimes it is wet bread.

Then we move on to the main dish, which is the part that has me quaking in terror for an hour before the meal. I never know what it is going to be. Madame has a penchant for plopping things on top of other things and calling it a meal. For example, one night we had ratatouille. It was delicious. But then a week later, when Vaune came over, we had the same ratatouille, which had been sitting in the fridge, and Madame just plopped some white fish down on top of it and called it a meal. Recently we also had Brussels sprouts with random sausages plopped down on them.

Another thing that Madame does is that she makes three of whatever it is that we are eating. This seems normal, as there are three of us (Madame, Monsieur and me), but Madame never eats hers. Whatever she makes, she always says, « Ça ne me convient pas, » which means, « It doesn’t agree with me. » So she makes food that makes her sick and then doesn’t eat it. Logical. Monsieur will eat one of whatever she makes (for example, random sausage plopped on Brussels sprouts) and she expects me to eat two. Every single night I tell her she makes too much food and that I can’t eat all of it, it will make me sick. Every night she freaks out if I don’t eat it.

Last night she made some bizarre concoction that resembled franks 'n' beans, and then insisted that I eat it with lettuce. Let me just tell you, lettuce soaked in vinaigrette and then made soggy by franks 'n' beans sauce is disgusting. And she made me clean my plate. Like I was five.

Dessert is usually fine. Sometimes it’s fruit, sometimes chocolate. The only time I had a problem with dessert was when it was just crêpe bread, and she made me put hot cocoa mix on the inside. I don’t even like crêpes that much, and this was just crunchy and gross.

I have saved the worst food experience for last. This one surpasses the others, and has become known among my friends. It began with one night of canned ravioli, which I didn’t finish because she made enough for ten people (it just really bugs me when she makes all this food every night and then gets mad if I don’t finish it). The next night she took the leftover ravioli (which already didn’t taste good) and wrapped it in an omelet. But this was no ordinary omelet. It was an extraordinarily grey and rubbery omelet. This was too much for me and after a few bites I informed her that I do not generally eat eggs (which is true). This prompted her to scoop out the mushy eggy ravioli from the inside of the omelet and plop it onto my plate. Yum.

Perhaps later I will write Volume II : The Constantly Blaming Me for Things Her Husband Does, and Volume III : Yes I Already Shut My Damn Shutters, Woman, So Stop Asking Me for the Millionth Time.

Long time no news...

So I figure maybe it’s time to update you all on my adventures. I haven’t written much lately, because nothing interesting has been happening, and the things that have been happening have been consuming my time.

Let’s start with my birthday. Chris, Laura, Vaune, Scott, Katie and I went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was pretty good. I got the masala chai tea which was delicious, especially because I had been sick for several days and was still very sick. Vaune paid for everyone’s dinner – quite the grand gesture, I must say. Of course, seeing that we went out afterwards and drinks are about 6 euros a pop, she got paid back pretty quickly by people buying her drinks.

We went to Le Falstaff, a bar that we frequent, where the bartender sort of knows us and calls us nicknames. After some time there, Jessie showed up with a birthday card that had been signed by our entire class. Aww :-)

Laura, Vaune, Chris, Katie and Scott au Falstaff

Vaune, Chris, Katie and I


Vaune doesn't smoke, but we were all enamored of this pack of cigarettes.

They say, "Fumer peut entraîner une morte longue et douleureuse," which means, "Smoking may cause a slow and painful death."

After that we decided to check out Soft Bar, which was boring, so we walked down to l’Imanol, which was creepy and quiet. Suddenly, however, a group of young gay men, excited by the fact that we were American, started speaking to us in broken English and guessing the sexual orientations of everyone present. After this fun game, they kidnapped us and literally skipped to a gay bar down the street. It was a little bizarre, but there was a DJ and a disco ball downstairs. No one was down there, so we went down and started dancing, and were promptly followed by half of the bar.

Saturday was a laundry day, less than exciting. I also went to lunch and then Vaune and Chris and Katie walked me home to drop off my laundry and we wandered around the centre ville. I showed them the literally ‘‘hole in the ground’’ public toilet on my street.



Saturday was pretty uneventful. However, Saturday evening I was in the centre ville with Chris, Katie and Vaune, and we were going to get something to eat. I put my ATM card into the ATM and… poof! It vanished. I had no cash and no card. I was completely without any source of money for the first time in my life. Vaune had to buy me a crappy piece of pizza. I had 4 euros to my name.

Sunday was supposed to be our second (and final) excursion, to Les Chateaux de la Loire, which would have made for some cool stories and interesting pictures for you all, but I just didn’t feel healthy enough, so I didn’t go. Instead I spent much of the day sewing (my clothes are falling apart) and also had sandwiches in the centre ville with Chris. Well, Chris had a sandwich, and I watched him eat it. I didn’t want to waste my 4 euros.

The banking problem was exacerbated by the fact that since I’ve been here, I haven’t been able to sign in to my online account, so I had no idea how much money I actually had or anything like that. Luckily on Monday, my dad was able to send me some money via Western Union, and then he managed to report my card lost/stolen and has FedExed me the new one. I should get it today. So that has been resolved, but was temporarily very scary because I was out of phone card money, out of cell phone minutes, and it was the weekend so I couldn’t use the internet.

This week has been relatively uneventful, mostly sleeping and class and sewing and reading and watching The Office. We are going out to dinner tonight, so that should be fun. Also, Carolyn may come visit on Sunday, and Damien Douillard (a teacher from Ste Anne who lived in my residence one year) is coming to hang out on Wednesday because he went to school in Angers for seven years and loves it and lives nearby.

"On n'a pas tous les jours vingt ans..."

Vaune came over for dinner last night, to interview my old people for her project on differences between generations. We had leftover ratatouille with fish. Vaune is a vegetarian, and the fact that she ate the fish is a testament to how much she wanted to talk to M. et Mme. Gilot.

After dinner, Mme brought out home-made chocolate mousse and this apple that had an American flag and a French flag in it. She said that since I was not going to be having dinner with them on my birthday, she wanted to do something special « for the Americans. » It was adorable. She tried to remember this song about turning twenty, but she couldn’t remember the words. She was humming bits of it in old-lady-voice. All I could think of was « My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown » and « Among My Souvenirs. » It was adorable. It also gave me a much-sought-after excuse to take a picture of the Gilots ! I know you have been waiting patiently…



Tonight I am going to a gay bar in the center of town with my new friend Chris to interview a guy for my project on LGBT life in Angers. Ought to be interesting.

Mont Saint-Michel et St. Malô

Yesterday we went on our first “excursion,” to Mont Saint-Michel and St. Malô.

The day started badly.

I got to La Catho 10 minutes early (at 6:35 AM), only to realize that I had forgotten my little pass that said that I had paid to go on this trip. I freaked out because I was really excited about the trip, and my house is a 20 minute walk. I started walking back, dejectedly, and texted Vaune asking her to tell them what happened and ask if I could come back without the pass. Ten minutes later they told her that I could, so I had to turn around and run back. On the way back, I witnessed something too upsetting to post publicly, and promptly was sick on the street. Not a great way to start the day.

When I got on the bus, Vaune made me eat her Nesquik cereal bar, which made me feel a little better, and we were on our way. I semi-napped most of the way to Mont Saint-Michel, which was our first stop.

Mont Saint Michel is a town and a cathedral built on a mountain island. The cathedral was built to honor the archangel Michael, and the village was built because people kept making pilgrimages to the cathedral and they needed somewhere to stay. It is connected to the mainland by a road that is slowly ruining the seascape around it, but there are plans to remove the road and replace it with a footbridge to restore the area. That’s a quick recap – you can see the Wikipedia article here.



We climbed up many stairs and took many pictures.









Vaune did a handstand, which I don't have a picture of at the moment.




Vaune is standing in front of the door to show how small it is.


The cloister.




Vaune is hiding in the architecture.


My favorite picture from the day.


Vaune in a window.




The archangel Michael slaying the dragon.


Jennifer and I on the way down.


The village - the touristy part anyway.


The way out.

At 12:30, we came back down for lunch. Vaune did another handstand.



Lunch was sandwiches and apples and chips – we were all sitting up on some rocks and the director of the program was throwing baguettes at us. We caught most of them, and had baguettes and cream cheese as well.


The rocks where we ate lunch.

After that we got back on the bus and drove another couple of hours to St. Malô, which is where people left from to go to Canada, including Jacques Cartier, who “discovered” Canada. Check it out on Wikipedia if you want to know more. This marked my first time in Bretagne (Brittany). It was gorgeous. We walked up on the ramparts, and then Vaune and I walked down to the beach and went wading.


The beach at St-Malô








Jacques Cartier, stabbing the sun.


Vaune wading.


Me wading. Please note my awesome Transitions lenses that turn into sunglasses under UV rays.




Mes pieds dans l'océan.

Later we got gelatos and window-shopped, before getting back on the bus again and having our final bus ride back to Angers. Nobody wanted to go home yet, so Brenna, Vaune, Laura and I got galettes (which are like crêpes but with real food, not dessert food). Brennan got a feta salad, Laura got a potato, ham and onion galette, Vaune got the vegetarian galette, and I got the goat cheese one. Delish.

After that I went back, and Madame had made me a cold dinner, which was capers wrapped in ham. Not so awesome. But I ate it all… I always feel like I have to eat everything she puts in front of me. And then I went to bed!

My birthday is coming up. I think we are going to go out for Italian. If anyone cares, all I really want for my birthday are iTunes Music Store gift cards, but even more than that I would love letters from my family (and friends). The address (until the end of September) is:

___my name___
c/o M. et Mme. Gilot
120 Rue des Ponts de Cé
Angers 49000
FRANCE