Settling in Tours, France

Written 26/08/2006 22:31

Bonjour mes amis! Here’s the latest from la France!

After a very long flight, we took a terribly long bus ride from Paris to Tours, where we met our host families. Sarah, my “housemate,” and I met a charmingly tall and thin man whose name neither of us can now remember. We’ve agreed that to avoid embarrassment we must ask him to repeat it soon rather than later in our acquaintance. Our house-father and his wife, Claire, live in a tall, slender house (the supermodel of homes) with their six children (Yup, they’re Catholic). Antoine is 22, Mattieu is 20, Martin is 16, et Paul is almost 13. There are also two girls, but they are away on a Catholic youth retreat for the rest of the weekend. The family is very kind and very helpful. They invited us to join them at a French wedding today, but when they called the hostess they found that she unfortunately could not accommodate us. That this took them completely by surprise amused me to no end.

Sarah and I explored the town a little last night in order to find converters for our computers. This morning, we found the Institute de Tourraine easily and took a placement exam with considerable less ease (at least I did). Helena Pyl, who is close friends with my dear Ariana at Wellesley, and I wandered around for lunch. We found “un marché” and she munched on pain au chocolat (which has no English equivalent) while I gobbled a quiche. We saw a bit more of the town, including the church right next to her house, where I showed off my impressive knowledge of architectural French vocabulary (merci, Mme Vaget!). We sauntered down to the famous Loire River, along which many castles are built. I know I will see at least one castle while I am here with a group of Sweet Briar students, but I hope I get a chance to return and tour them all.

We attended a logistical meeting, in a stifling room with professors who spoke far too quickly for our slow American ears, but I think I understood everything I needed to. We will take language classes in the morning and cultural classes in the afternoon. We are free each night to explore and “aller en boîte” (go clubbing) as we please.

With this in mind, we left the meeting to buy cell phones and make plans for the night ahead. Bien sûr, I forgot my map and school documents at the phone store, and when I returned to claim it I was told that another Sweet Briar students had taken them to return them to me. When I finally found the bar at which we had our “pot,” I was grateful to reclaim them from my friend, Maddy. “Un pot,” by the way is translated by Oxford-Hachette to be a “Drinks Party” (GB), so I’m thinking it’s about the same as a cocktail party, with the exception that ours was at 5 in the afternoon, rather than at night. Those French, they do start early… It was both wonderful and weird to swig champagne with our directrice, administrators, and professeurs. We had a lovely time (read: got tipsy), and I then returned home. Sarah and I had salad and pizza for dinner by ourselves, since the family is at the aforementioned wedding tonight. We sampled a…different sort of food when we tried the “Crème de Marrons” they left for us. Why anyone would puree chestnuts and call it edible is beyond both of us. We were grateful that they weren’t present to see our facial expressions. It tastes a bit like sweet refried beans, but the texture is grainy and thin. Not our cup of tea.

Now we’re just hanging out here tonight, too tired to go out as previously planned. We’re composing emails that we can’t send and blogs we can’t post in Word, so that we can send and post them when we finally have internet access.

Here’s my cell phone number, if you’d like to/need to contact me (though I hope it’s the former!): 06-77-80-53-73. ALL my incoming calls are free, so it’s easiest for me if you call me by phone card. I can contact others in France by I have to buy international coverage to call anyone abroad. Furthermore, I can’t make international calls for 2 weeks, but I can receive them in 2 days.

I miss you all, and I am taking lots of photos with you in mind, because I want to share this fantastic experience with you! I hope you enjoy!