I received a request
in the mail today from a certain Princeton Tiger who is near and dear to my
heart to hear more about ma vie quotidienne. It seems appropriate on the one month anniversary of my departure, so I will indulge
her.
My classes
start at 8:30 and it takes me a half hour to get to campus. Therefore, I wake
up at about 7am every day (point of reference: I am six hours ahead of you all
here). I don’t run in the mornings
because it’s too dark and not safe. I
get ready and eat a breakfast of bread with jam or cheese, and tea. Sometimes I eat yoghurt instead. French youth have an obsession with chocolate
cereals and in the store, they are always begging “Maman, Maman, CHOCO POPS”. I do not share this obsession but I love
watching it manifest itself in grocery store aisles. So I get to campus (side note: the campus of
the Université de Grenoble is probably the ugliest collection of buildings and
landscaping I have ever seen in my life- a disappointing contrast to the great
tradition of aesthetics the French have established) and have either two or
four hours of language courses. Mondays
I have four, Tuesday through Thursday I have two. We spend very little time doing pure grammar,
which surprised me. We have one grammar
exercise per week for homework and we have spent upwards of one and a half
tedious hours grading it. Fortunately,
that torture only happens once a week.
The rest of the time we have interesting discussions and writing
workshops. We also go to the listening
lab once a week where I repeat after my teacher and practice French intonation
and pronunciation. After it’s recorded,
we’re supposed to repeat it again and again and correct ourselves. Sometimes I can’t help but laugh at how I sound. And that’s how a weekday morning goes.
I
don’t have class after 12:30 on Mondays and Thursdays. Tuesdays I have four hours of option classes,
English/French translation from 1:30 to 3:30 and then European Union from 3:30
– 5:30. They only meet once a week but
Tuesday is a marathon. Wednesdays I have
French History from 4-5:30. My
afternoons usually include doing my homework in a park when the weather’s nice
(as it has been almost consistently here), writing in my journal, or window
shopping in city center. I stop at the
internet café about twice a week to stay up to date with you all and inevitably
to make travel plans. I am usually home
around 7:30 at which point Marie-T and I go to work on dinner. We turn on the news and trade stories about the day. Sometimes I’ll watch TV with her after dinner.
She’s always entertaining and she thinks the fact that I don’t like eggs
in omelets but I do like them hard-boiled on salads is just bizarre. Then I usually go to my little room and read
until I go to bed. Weekend and sometimes
weekday nights will usually include going to a bar and hanging out, that is, if
I’m here. I am trying to make the most of my first semester
in Europe, but I don’t want to miss out on what Grenoble has to offer either.
Traveling is also a lot of work. After
Marseille, I'll take a break for a while.
I haven’t met
many French people I don’t like. I find their humor terribly amusing, as
well as the way they take life and themselves.
It also makes me feel like more of an outsider. The only funny things I say are comical
errors in syntax or vocabulary…unavoidable, but they take a swing at my pride,
nonetheless. I’m so obviously American. I've never felt more self-conscious in my
life. Everywhere I go I know people can
tell, and I'm not even the worst I've encountered. Riding the bus or tram around town, I've noticed
that I can spot foreigners too. A recent
encounter I had in the street is a good example of a common American blunder.
I just joined a
gym and I was walking to the tram stop in gym shorts and a sweatshirt. Not a big deal, right? Au contraire.
First thing that happens: some man of at least fifty dressed in business
casual with a sports coat and loafers (sans socks) comes up to me and comments
on the beautiful day. I smile and nod in
agreement; not realizing what is happening. He proceeded to ask me to have a drink with
him. I politely declined the offer stating that I was on my way to the gym (as
if it hadn’t been made painfully obvious by my appearance). He persisted and asked me if maybe I could meet
him tomorrow? Nope, sorry sir, you're old enough to be my father and I would
love to tell you to get bent but I don't know how. Actually, I just said no again. He got the picture and walked away. This brought to mind the incident of the insulting comment from the random teenager on the street when I was about to hike the Bastille. I was also wearing shorts.
I sat there waiting for the tram thinking through it. Why would someone do that? Then I started to become aware of more people
not really staring, but glancing disapprovingly in my direction. I’m convinced now it was the shorts. No one and I mean NO one wears shorts
here. Only to exercise, and even then
it’s mostly capris. Visible knees are
only acceptable when topped by a short skirt or dress. Even when girls do wear short skirts, a lot
of times they’ll have pants on
underneath. There’s a glamorous system
of layering that Europeans have perfected.
One of my goals is to successfully recreate this look at some point
before I leave. But that’s beside the
point.
I was at the gym sweating out my
confusion when I was struck again by another difference: none of the women
there were sweating, and I mean really sweating, not just that healthy glow. I thought, why go to the gym if you’re not going
to break a sweat? To be fair, there were
one or two others who were working those machines like it was their last day on
earth. But once more I found myself
sticking out like a sore thumb. Sinking
deep into thought, I upped the RPMs on my stationary bike, further separating me
from the ranks of the stylishly damp natives.
I started replaying images of women I had seen in the street on very warm
days. Long sleeves, scarves, long pants,
and closed-toed shoes dominated every scene.
I thought about it all the way through the workout and I guess it struck
me on the way home that French women have a sort of aloof air about them:
always put together, always polished, always graceful, never
affected by anything except what’s fashionable.
Exercise shorts and a sweatshirt do not follow this model. I guess showing your knees when not exercising
is regarded as trashy. No wonder that
guy came up to me… he thought I was a sure thing. And the teenager was perhaps very offended by my poor taste and needed to tell me so. Rest assured I will never make that mistake
again. It will be long pants over the shorts to and from the gym or, better
yet, don’t even let the gym clothes see the street, change there.
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