It's Only Been A Week!?

Every morning, I wake up in my feather bed and I get up and go to my window, part

the long white curtains, pull open the window panes, and breathe in the fresh morning air as I lean out my window and swing open the white-painted wooden shutters. Sometimes it takes me a second to remember I am not living in a storybook, especially when the man who lives in the mansion across the street comes outside with his dog to pick up the newspaper before going back into his picturesque house, like happened this morning.

That is the story of about half my life here-- I feel like I have been dropped into a fairytale. There are different versions of the story; sometimes I am a medieval princess walking along a cobblestone street, other times I'm a character from a book or movie moving along wide-eyed in her new life. (Of course, there are other times when I am simply on a bus or in H&M or coughing at cigarette smoke, but those aren't as fun to describe, and they certainly are not going to be the hallmark of my time here.) Even though the city isn't big like Paris or London, it is so picturesque, and I am starting to learn my way around. It is almost impossible for me to believe that we only got here a week ago yesterday. This may well be the longest week of my entire life. Not in a bad way, but it feels like so much has happened. How do I already know my way around a downtown and a bus system and it's only been seven days? And how on earth was it only two and a half weeks ago that I stood in the airport in California?!

My first topic for today is the supermarché. After doing some brioche-eating and school supply shopping this afternoon, I met up with my host mom and, after popping into Sephora, where the saleswoman tried to sell Catherine a tub of face cream that cost 272 euro (!!!!), we drove to le Carrefour, a huge grocery store. If you want to see cultural differences, go to a grocery store. Aside from the fact that "You Belong With Me" and "Teenage Dream" were playing while we were shopping, making me feel right at home, I was fascinated by some of the items on the shelves. For example, there is very little concept of healthy/organic eating, and thus much less selection-- nothing comes in low fat or fat free. Wheat bread is special "American sandwich" bread with "grains" added, and even then it's not very wheaty. White bread is called natural style! Also, brown rice seems to not exist. Another thing that weirds me out, even though I understand why, is how expensive everything is. It seems like there isn't a lot of diversity in price between items, but they are all fairly expensive. Two packs of gum, for example, costs around 5 US dollars, or a little less (I don't know how I am going to manage!). Also, it's funny to note the things that have been Americanized or Frenchified. There are a lot of products that are American brands, but the brand name is totally different and slogans cater to French people. There are also things where the American aspect is played up-- Stride gum, for instance, is called Hollywood Style gum instead. Anyway, it's just really interesting to wander around the store and see what they have and don't have. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to what is available (kidney beans but not garbanzo or black; twenty thousand kinds of cous cous but one kind of rice), although it obviously reflects the French diet. Anyway, my host mom is making "Mexican" food tonight, so I'll have to report on what exactly that consists of. :)

Another of the most marked cultural differences is road etiquette. Pedestrians don't always have the right of way, but jay walking is not only legal but expected. People cross whenever they think they have time to (and even when they don't). Most everything is within walking distance, and if not, we can take the bus, like to our school campus. It's both nice and strange to just walk everywhere and not be dependent on a car. It kind of feels like Dijon is what I thought a college town would be like, where you don't need a car to get to school or grocery shop or anything. When people do drive, they are decidedly less adept with their vehicles, probably since they don't have to use them all the time. Cars just seem to sort of go when they want and decide they won't crash. I have seen so many near-accidents here, but I guess since everybody drives that way, it doesn't usually end in a crash. I witnessed an example of strange French driving today when we went to the supermarket. My host mom was trying to park in a tight spot in the parking garage-- there was a pole on one side of the space and she wasn't coming at a good angle-- and she didn't know how to do it! I started telling her which way to turn the wheel and she had me direct her! About ten minutes later we made it into the parking spot. I thought

it was hilarious, but I think she found it harrowing. We had fun shopping though and I helped her back out of the spot when we left, both of us laughing the whole time.

One last cultural thing (and I am kind of stealing this topic from Kayla, but I was planning on writing about it anyway ;) )-- all the women in London and Paris wear tights and boots almost all the time. They wear heavy coats and great big scarves, but they wear tights with skirts or dresses. I was horrified the first time I saw this, since I was wearing jeans and I was still completely freezing, but after buying a new pair of navy tights at H&M I decided I needed to try to accomplish this European fashion feat. Yesterday I wore a dress with tights, knee socks and boots, just like all the stylish European women, and I wasn't any colder than usual. I felt quite successful and oh so French--especially after I found a leather coat marked down to TEN EURO at a street market and added that to my ensemble. :)

In actual news of my life, we found out our class placement and schedule yesterday morning. I am in level 5 and I'm really happy (and relieved)! There are 6 levels total, but hardly anyone in the whole program places into level 6 and Michel always prepares the Dijonettes for levels 4 or 5. Being in level 5 also means that I only have 6 classes to take senior year instead of 7, leaving me with two empty spots in my schedule! What's more, I have a great schedule this semester-- no classes on Fridays and nothing until 1 on Mondays! Perfect for weekend travel! Thursday I have seven hours of class with one half an hour break, so that is going to be horrible, but the rest of the days look good, and I will hopefully be able to fit some dance classes into my schedule, too! On top of our 15 hours a week of language classes (including one three-hour long civilization class on familiar French), we have to take three culture classes, which meet once every two weeks. I am taking theater, economics and art history. We also have the class at the political science institute, which I don't actually really want to take, especially since my schedule sounds full enough already! We don't know when it will be held yet, but probably before Wednesday dinners. I have a feeling that the rest of the semester is going to hold stark contrast to the idleness of this past week!

Tomorrow is Sunday, which means that absolutely nothing is open. I will probably hang out here and catch up on email and "Glee," and hopefully I can meet up with some of the other girls to hang out. On Monday, we're all going out to dinner at the pizzeria we found last week to be each other's Valentine's dates (and to celebrate getting through what will be our first day of classes!). I will also hopefully get to start doing some planning for spring break and other travel adventures! À bientôt!

possibly my new favorite thing: brioche au sucre et chocolat

all the dijonettes after our first wednesday dinner!