Moving Day

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Its Moving Day

October 1st. I have now met all of the assistants that I’ll be living with. Its really nice having them around. Evelina who is this gorgeous assistant from Italy has been staying with her parents in Metz for the past couple of days. Her parents are so cute and her mom pinches my cheek when she sees me and says touta bella. I dont know why I always speak French to them knowing they speak Italian. Maria from Cordoba, Spain is unpacking at I type. She has an amazing Spanish accent and is beautiful as well. Oh all these european girls. I can’t wait to post pictures. She is nice so far and seems welcoming. And then my there is Sabine, the assistant from Germany. I think her and I will become good friends. She speaks English really well so I can tell her things and she totally gets it. She dresses amazingly so she said she’d take me shopping so I can look more european. I am blending in pretty well with the students here since I look so young they all think I am a student here so no one says anything. All of the professors think I look young too. Evelina is 25, Sabine is 24 almost 25 and I haven’t asked Maria how old she is yet. It is nice that we are all in our 20’s and can do things together. Tonight we will have our first dinner together. I am excited. Sabine and I went out for a drink last night and got to know each other a little bit. I love how sweet everyone is so far. I hope it lasts but I know that even though I am in Europe, living with people is just the same as it is back home and we can fight over the same things. Now that we are all together we can ask for internet access in our apartment at the same time. Its nice being around other people even if I don’t talk to them, it makes being here less lonely because they have all come from different parts too and know what its like to miss family and friends and be far from home. I hope at some point I’ll get to go to Spain and Italy and maybe meet some of their families.

Today I also met my first class of french students. There were 8 20 year old boys. It was a very small class and I think the were embarrassed at first and some of them didn’t want to speak English with me. It was really cute. They didn’t want to learn their lesson instead they just wanted to ask me questions. I got so many questions from “how long did my flight take” to “do you speak french, say something in french, how do you pronounce your name in English...and then they would say it as a group. I showed them my American drivers license and they said they would teach me how to drive a manual car haha. One student was like “so if i give you my car, you can drive it’? and i said...no, and then explained how a lot of cars in the US are automatic. they asked me what kind of car i drove and i told them how i would like have a Honda which sparked another interesting thing. It amazes me how the pronunciation of one letter can make someone understand or not understand a whole word. I said Honda like we pronounce it and they didn’t understand what I was saying. Then I didn’t pronounce the H like we do in English so it sounds like “ownda” in French and they all completely understood. It was crazy, oh the little things that make me think man English must be hard. But at the same time, hopefully they realize that I am going through the same thing everyday that I am here, mispronouncing things, not being understood, not having the right words, phrases, verb tenses....its frustrating, overwhelming, scary and fun at the same time.

Now I am going to have coffee with the Spanish assistant and some of the other professors for about 15 minutes. I am always looking for things to do here and keep forgetting that this is my life now and I need to figure out things to keep me occupied. I keep forgetting that I am not just coming home in a few weeks. Sometimes it makes me sad but other times I get excited about having so much time to travel around.

I had an impromptu meeting with a second class of students who have only been learning English for 2 years. It made me remember what it was like to have one of my old french professors ask me a question in French and I had no idea what they said or how to respond...even worse than now. They were so cute and asked me some of the same questions, do i speak french, how long will i be in france, where am i living in france. they were all so surprised that there was an actual american standing before them. they were just like what? she came from america?? it was the first time they had met an american girl. I felt so privilaged. We started talking about movies and music and I asked them to tell me their favorite movie and one girl said Twilight. I wanted to say “you really liked that movie? that movie was crap”. but they wouldnt have understood that and that would have been rude. but edward cullen’s face is on all of the teeny bopper magazines here just like it is in the US. And the students listen to a lot of american music like Akon and such, I think even Greenday. It makes me laugh.

I am headed out in a few minutes to do all the paperwork I’ve been dreading doing since I got here. I have to start notifying the official people that I am here. Then I’ll go to the bank and finish opening my account so I can actually get a visa that works here. I think I’ll be going to the cell phone place to get a phone and finally back to home where the assistants and I will go the Longwy’s local form of a Target, its called l’Ocean. Just to get some things for the apartment/food. Its so nice having them around. Then tomorrow its off to meet 2 more classes. Yay its Friday though so thats exciting.

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