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Published: September 23rd 2009
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Class has begun!
The boat tour was a pretty interesting way to see the city. It took about an hour, and there were headphones so you could listen to a commentary about Strasbourg. Fun fact: the city has 27 bridges!
I have officially started classes! We got a list of courses we could pick from on Friday, and this week we went to any classes we were interested in, we just have to hand in our course selection by the end of the week. Monday I went to a class about the history of the European concept. The prof seems nice but he has a southern France accent that I’ve been told is really hard to understand. He speaks very very slowly though so I didn’t have any troubles. My evening class is about culture and international relations. It focuses on the United States influence on France. We’ll be watching clips of movies and studying mass media and propaganda. I think it will be a pretty good course. Tuesday Taryn and I went to an international economy class. We decided it was over our heads and we left half way through, at the break. Our next 2 classes were
decent as well, one of them being with the same prof who teaches the international relations class. I talked to some of the French students in my classes and I'm hoping to take a look at their notes if I miss anything! I have decided to do the CEPE program at my school (Certificat d’Etudes Politiques Europeens) which consists of 40 credits worth of classes (about 16 hours a week), a week working at the European Parliament, and a 2500 word essay. I’m not sure if the cerfiticate will be worth anything in Canada, but it will be good experience and, even though we have to do a bit of extra work, we don’t have to take as many classes.
Over the weekend, there was kind of a cultural heritage celebration type day and all the museums and European institutions were open to the public. I went with a group of people from my floor to the European Court of Human Rights. They put on a very interesting tour. We got to sit in a courtroom and two lawyers presented each side of a case that went through the courts. It felt like being in real life Law &
Order! The group I went with were all from France, so it was nice change to be forced to speak French! (unlike with my british/canadian/american group of friends!)
I’ve met almost everyone on my floor, I always leave my door open when I’m in my room so I can say hi to people when they’re around. The other night Taryn was downstairs calling her parents when a (sort of creepy) guy walked by my room and stopped at my door to say hello. I went over to introduce myself and was about to shake his hand but then I realized that he was carrying a bunch of stuff. He leaved over and kissed my cheeks which is called “bisous” in French. This was only the second time that has happened to me here, it definitely takes getting used to. I find it kind of awkward and uncomfortable. Anyways, the guy said he’d come back in a minute after he dropped off the stuff. Thankfully Taryn was back when the French guy (and his friend) came back to my room. They were just dropping off stuff for one of the guy’s brother. They asked us if we liked to go
out on the weekend and what time we had courses and stuff. We mentioned that we want to travel and I almost thought they were going to offer to drive us places. I think next time I’ll just pretend that I don’t speak French…
For the last couple nights I’ve had Taryn and a few other French friends from our floor over for tea. Olivier, a Quebecois who also goes to my school, comes for tea and somehow there always ends up being a heated discussion about Quebec vs Canada or Quebec vs France. We give him a hard time about his quebecois accent though! Sometimes Taryn and I get lost when the French students start talking quickly to each other, but we’re trying to keep up.
Back to class in a few minutes!
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alex h
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JEALOUS that you get quebec vs canada discussions, IN france! les quebecois et mon ami fort separatiste me manquent tellement! (ainsi que, bien sur, ce bel accent quebecois!) talk to you soon, i'm sure :)