Making some French Generalizations

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Travel Blog - France #2
Okay I will return to my pre-France adventures with Maura next entry (I am writing it now) but I wanted to update you all on France and the goings on here, so I’ll talk about my first few weeks in France. Typical French-ness at work as I will show you here:

Typicality 1: Can’t get a stamp when I enter the country. Of course I have to go to 3 different offices at the airport just to find this out (all of those before say they are sure I can get one if I just go to the next office). I am not too surprised by this since it is part of the Schengen space but whatever I wanted to try anyway to perhaps make the visa process easier.

Typicality 2: Get to the hostel and I am super tired (plus brain is still in Spanish mode) but the hostel dude does not offer to speak English with me even though I think he can (though thinking about it now it is not that unlikely that he cannot not). This does not upset me at all, but I don’t like that he doesn’t have any real sheets for the bed instead he gives me a “sleeping bag sheet”. This could have been fine EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT THE BEDS HAVE BED BUGS. *Okay this is all not part of the typicality probably but I want to vent and explain what happened.* Ummm yeah so the first night was okay (they weren’t really awake yet) but when I woke up the 2nd morning at 5am I was covered (face, neck, arms, ankles, and random ones everywhere). Gross. I obviously couldn’t sleep so I went online to find another place to stay for the next couple of days until I started at my school/I could find an apartment. I washed all my stuff but couldn’t dry it all (typicality #2.5 as most French homes don’t have driers, they use little air drier racks). So the head of Couch surfing in Toulouse invites me to stay with him and says to come immediately so I do.

Typicality 3: So that night I end up drinking wine, eating dried meat and conversing with a lively bunch of Frenchmen in a tiny town outside Toulouse. How did I get there? Well when I arrive at my couch host, his friend wisks me on an adventure. We see pretty little towns, go fig/plum hunting on small country roads, and randomly stop at little flea markets. On the way home we hear some music off in the distance so we decide to investigate. This small town is having a festival and they invite us to join them. I learned to dance a sort of French 2 step as well as everything above. Much better than the previous night!

Typicality 4: (really this one applies to any big city especially one that has as many foreign students who are all starting class now) Search all the ads for apartments/ rooms/ roommates you name it! Anytime I thought I had found something- they stood me up at the showing, it was with a grandmother (not that I needed a best friend but I think I would feel bad coming home after 8pm), or they never called back. What a pain. But no worries it turned out for the best that I didn’t find anything. Also I was not the only one this happened to almost all the assistants.

Typicality 5: Try to open a bank account and get a phone plan and you need a residence in order to have one. Oh and in order to get an apartment you need a bank account and a phone. Point= France= paperwork circles

Typicality 6: French schools have lodging for students and many times for teachers YES! Circle broken! So the school has let me stay in their dorms during the week. Its in the same area as the students but I have my own room which is nice and they have finally given me my own keys so I can go upstairs during the day.

Typicality 7: Orientation after we all start work. In the middle of the work week. All in French bien sur! (I am happy that I didn’t lie about my ability to understand French or I would be screwed here. I really speak French except in class and SOMETIMES with the English teachers aka when we are in front of students, but no complaints cause I my skills will be so SOLID when I am done). Not much to report except that it helped me meet some other cool volunteers- 2 of which I am living with on the weekends. Okay so note on living situation: Mon-Thurs at the school in Montauban, and Thurs-Mon at another school (this one has assistant apartments) in Toulouse. This seems to work best as I can make it to class at 8am easily and still experience the city life and I save my money! No oven yet again this year but I can live with it.

Typicality 8: Find out at orientation that if I am not an EU citizen I need a “visa de retour” aka some kind of sticker/stamp to come back into the country if I leave. What? No one said this before! In the info book they say go to the prefecture. Those people say (oh you know after just 3 HOURS in line and after I checked with the info booth 2 times to see if I was in the right place) to contact the British consulate who say go to the prefecture. CIRCLES YET AGAIN! Oh and none of this is at the office I sent in my visa info because that would be too easy.

Typicality 9: Foncionairres are irritating b*****ds! This isn’t a typicality just a fact of life. Do not go to a govt place unless you have all day (which by the way could be as short as 9 to 3 with a break for lunch of course and no Sundays, or Mondays, probably not Saturdays, and sometimes not Wednesdays)

Typicality 10: this goes along with #9. Don’t try to buy anything on Sunday because EVERYTHING is closed including the supermarkets

Typicality 11: Strikes for working too hard. Ironic? No just French politics. They have raised the retirement age from 60 to 62 if you have worked pretty much continuously and 65 to 67 if you have had some breaks. HOW DARE GOVERNMENT! YOUR FREE HEALTH CARE AND GENERALLY HIGH LIVING SITUATION IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH WE WILL ALL LIVE IN THE STREETS IF WE WORK MORE! Okay I am making fun of a serious issue and I see many of the people’s concerns but still its funny. In the US we would probably just give up but here. Trains shut down. Teachers and staff miss a day. Students manifesting in the street. All in my little town of Montauban. Hmmm why does it seem that political unrest follows me on my travels? Whatever this is entertaining and I have smaller classes I guess (1 had only 1 student and my prof and me … nice?).

Typicality 12: Goes along with profs not being there. The class is dismissed. No subs. For the faculty and staff the attitude is I do my job, ANYTHING ELSE NOT MY JOB. (not completely cause I have had many work with me outside to make sure I am ready for class, but not always some sent me groups right away to work with before I even knew anything about the class). I have too many hours cause no one wants to take themselves off. I’m not surprised there are 10 prof at the school here and 1 of me and whatever I will use this to make up for Thanksgiving and do less hours when I get back.

Typicality 13: What do you think? Paperwork of course. I want to take off 3 days to come home for Thanksgiving and Babcia’s birthday so I have a whole slew of stuff to prepare.

Typicality 14: Okay positives only here! French people are really welcoming when you meet them: When the school dorms were randomly closed for a night, I stayed at one of the school dorm supervisors houses, who is 25 and so nice. Yay for making friends. I have been invited to a bunch of the teachers houses for dinner, and went to one already where I spent the night (typicality 12.5 I stayed the night because of course we HAD to have wine before, during and after dinner, but it was cool she set me up in my own little room and even found a toothbrush for me to use).

Typicality 15: Meals such as the one I had with Pascale and friends (SO great to see her again. It made all the difference to see some family after the bugs and I was sick etc.) Okay drinks and appetizers, soup/salad, meat and grain with wine, cheese and bread (you should already have a piece by this point though), finish bottle (s) with friendly discussion, dessert and coffee. This can take up to 4 hours if you like the people though typically it is not that longer maybe a couple of hours.

Typicality 16: Students level is really varied but so many have a surprisingly low comprehension of English (oral) that it sometimes makes Honduran 10 year olds look like geniouses. Perhaps it is my accent they have trouble with as theirs are, well, just so French! Oh and they all wonder why I don’t like McDonalds and am not fat (okay improv guys this is perhaps because they can’t see all of me at one time). And NOBODY knows where Minneapolis/Minnesota is. Chicago I guess is “close” but when I say its about as far away as Paris they say “What that’s not close at all!” I know! Hence New York and Washington DC are not that close either! And I am really far from California and Florida.

Okay you get the picture for now. Lots of paperwork and strange working hours, but generally the people are great and I am happy. I like my classes and once I sort out them all out (there is NO WAY I will remember so many names because I work with so many… so different from Honduras) I will see how I can best help them improve their English.

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