A Typical Day in France

I haven't written a blog about the past month in France, so I thought I'd sum it up with this. Ready? Here we go!

Day-trip to Annecy

This past month has been incredible! Best month of university, that's for sure. I think the main reason for that was the fact that I dropped my forth course. That's right, Im taking 3 courses, and two of them are only 2 hours a week. So you can imagine how much time I've had to just absorb in everything around me, travel,  and hang out with people from all around the world. Because really, who goes on exchange to study anyways?

I thought I'd summarize this past month with talking about a "typical day in France." The beauty in it is that there a "typical day" doesn't truly exist, I manage to do something new each day. During the morning though, I've gotten into a bit of a routine:

I wake up for my one or two classes of the day and walk down the mountain, sometimes just in time to catch the sun rise.

I cross the bridge and catch the tram to school. Takes a half hour to get there, but so worth it from my res view!

The view of my res from the river (top left building)

St. Louis Church in the centreville and the tram 

Math is taught very differently here, at least my two classes are. There are only 10 of us in mathematical modeling. There not much theory and a LOT of examples, we basically just do a bunch of exercises on the board each day. My prof likes to get me (the only exchange student) to explain "out loud" the solutions I put on the board. Kind of annoying, but it'll be good for my French in the long run.

My Real Analysis math class was quite a step up from what I had studied at McMaster. K, I had no idea what was happening in that class. Even in English. A prof at Mac told me I could get credit for another French course instead, so I'm just going to take this math course when I get back to Mac. I felt like I was "giving up" on the though, so I decided I'd write the first test just to prove to myself that I could. This is how it worked: The prof gave us each a little piece of paper with 3 questions on it and we had 45 minutes to solve it on the whiteboard. Intimidating stuff. 

My Real Analysis test
Note: the lack of numbers - (math!?)

I just *barely* passed, but just writing it was good enough for me! And that was the end of Real Analysis and the beginning of an amazing month in France.

My “Social Problems” French class has been incredible! Thirty students from all over the world just discuss and compare our cultures and lifestyles. I’ve definitely learned the most in this class. This week, my group led a presentation and discussion on stereotypes of nationalities.

Justin (U.S.), me (Canada!), Soyoung (South Korea), Patricia (Germany)

On *The Day I Dropped Math*, I got an email from a grade 8 student looking for an English as a Second Language tutor (tutoring has been an amazing experience here!) and an interview for a teaching position at Lakefield Camp International this summer for an English as a Second Language class. What a great day! I should drop classes more often.

Lakefield Camp International

I just found out I'll be starting there at the end of June, so 1 month home and then I'm moving into this residential camp until mid August. June is gonna have to be packed full with seeing people because it looks like I'm leaving again! I'm sure this will be a great opportunity though, especially for teacher's college, so I don't want to pass it up.

After class, at least a couple times a week, I make it to the market and the bakery. Wow the bread it SO good. Plus I still spend a lot of time exploring the town, it's beautiful. 

They have as many bakeries as we have Tim Hortons

The river (L'Isère) and les télépherics (the "bubbles")

My res is on the left side of the river, but you can't see it in this pic

One Sunday morning on my residence’s side of the river, they closed the street for this incredible market with really everything and anything from antique furniture to Beatles records, from (slightly creepy) dolls to snowshoes. Stephanie (U.S.) and I took a wander around, really neat!

Me and Stephanie at the crazy market next to the river

I’ve been able to take some time to just sit outside on a blanket, have a picnic, read and write in my journal. That is definitely NOT something I would have had time to do at Mac. The weather has been beautiful here, 15 or 20º and blue skies almost every day.

That’s about everything I’ve done as far as “routine.” The rest basically changes each day. I try and eat with different people and at different places as much as possible.

Eating out with a couple British girls and an American
(don't worry, I hang out with a lot of French too to work on my French)

Sharing pasta and broccoli salad with my Italian/Russian friend from  res!

Having burgers and ribs at "Steak", an American restaurant in the centreville
with 4 French and 3 Canadians

Trying "Ratatouille" for the first time at a restaurant with Justin and Patricia

A Canadian, German and Chinese making French crêpes !

Lunch at the school caf with Minung, Soyoung, Justin and Patricia

Enjoying some pizza and the beautiful weather at a river-side restaurant

When I arrived in France, I knew that I wanted to hang out with French people as much as I could to improve my French (that's one of the main reason's why I'm here). For the most part, that's been going well. The university has a TON of international students though (1/10). What I've learn while here is that it’s just as important to learn about each other’s cultures and countries as it is to learn proper French, so I find I do spend a lot of time with a mix of both.

Japanese bbq with a Korean, American, 2 Japenese, 2 French, and a German

Stephanie (U.S), Kéké (France), Elizabeth (Canada), Sophie (Germany), Stephanie 2 (U.S.), Christina (Canada!),
Nelly (France), Etienne (France), Rida (France)
Sharing some Italian cake in my res room

"...so a Canadian and her 3 Chinese friends walk into a French bar on St. Patrick's Day..."

Multicultural eh?

There's always lots to do in the evenings. I went and saw a play called "Le Horla" by Guy de Maupassant, which I read during my first year at Mac. It's a very strange monologue...but I knew I'd be able to understand the majority of it since I knew it already. I invited my Real Analysis class.

Théatre Sainte-Marie-d'en-Bas in Grenoble

Can you tell we're a math class? Me, Aurore, and 6 guys

After getting "cultured" as my Dad would put it,
we went to a bar in the centreville

A friend from that class invited me to go see a hockey game! It was the semi-finals between two French cities, Grenoble won 7-1!

Go Canada!

Quite an entrance

Good game boys! 

Another night, I invited a friend from my French class to go to Aida, an Italian opera about an Egyptian goddess. It was my first opera. To be honest, I hadn't a clue what was going on, but the music was beautiful.

Quite a big production!

Aurore from my math class invited me to go see a brass band orchestra play at the theatre near my res. They were fantastic! Played a piece by Duke Ellington, man I miss dancing! I can't wait to get back into that this summer.

Grenoble theatre, the yellow building on the left
(For the longest time, I had no idea that those windows were all painted on!)

The orchestra, made up of all ages from 18 to 80! Very impressive

Spending lots of time outside, even just at my res. This is Jean-Roland from the Ivory Coast, Africa walking the tightrope. I didn't get a picture of everyone else, there was a group of outside having a picnic with wine and cheese! Living la vie en rose !

Jean-Roland

Steph and I had a girls day and went to get our haircut! This was actually a scary endeavour, as I neither of us have ever been taught any French "haircut vocabulary". I think it turned out fine though!

We also went and saw "The Artist". Great film (especially for an anglophone in a French-speaking country). 

I’ve just started to get back into running again (necessary, when you see the number of pastries I eat here). I ran my first non-stop 8 km in a long time with Jeff from my French class, so that was exciting! Nice to run with others, because quite often when I run alone though, I end up stopping every 15 seconds to take a picture. This city is just too cool! Always something new to see. When I run up in the mountain, there are always caves and tunnels to explore.

I found another tower similar to the one in my last blog, which I thought would be a little room. Turned out to have a huge spiral staircase on the inside!

Today, I followed the river to an enormous cemetery about 4 km from my res. I’ve been meaning to make it here for the past 3 months.

May be difficult to understand the scale, but that is one huge cemetary 

Running across the bridge in rowing season! :D

When I made it to the cemetery, I saw a WWI soldier graveyard in the centre.

"Between the crosses, row on row..."

I've done more during a month in Grenoble than I did during my two and a half year at Mac. It's been a busy March, but definitely "the good kind" of busy!

Lots of my friends have been travelling and exploring other countries, but there's already some much to do here. I did get a chance to do a day trip to Annecy, a town a couple hours from here with a beautiful lake. I'll save that for my next blog though. In a few days though, Mom will be here with Aunt Mary and we'll be spending a week in Italy! Then we'll stay a couple days in Nice, southern France. After she leaves, Amanda (close friend from Peterborough) is coming and we're hoping to see Switzerland, England and Scotland. Breanne and I might meet up in Spain in May too! What an opportunity this exchange has been. I've been super blessed.

An adventure in my backyard

Good morning!

This morning when I got up, instead of wasting time on the computer, I decided to go for a walk. My residence is awesome in that it has a mountain in its backyard. So I put on a sweater and running shoes (very not French) and started my trek up the hill!

The forest back here reminds me of the cottage. It has fire-pits and even some forts. Can't wait to spend some time up at the lake this summer!

Fire pit

Pretty cool fort,
(Our "Pioneer Village" is cooler at the cottage though, eh Melissa?)

There are reminders of the old actual military fort all throughout the forest. Buildings covered in moss and vines, they’re so beautiful.

Walls surround different levels of the fort. They have slits, which I guess were for keeping watch.

I came upon some old stone stairs and followed them up to (unfortunately) a wall too high for my 5’2 body to hop over.

My shoes were too slippery to grip one of the slits, so I started heading back down. I took a peek over the wall at another point and could tell there was definitely something pretty cool over there. 

So I thought back to climbing the wall at the top of the mountain (La Bastille) a month ago, and remembered again, brain over brawn.    

I was able to tie off my shoes to a branch and wedge my socked-feet into the little crevices, in order to the top. Then I pulled the branch over to get my shoes back. (And if you’re wondering, I had just as much fun editing this picture as I did climbing the wall.)

From the top :)

On the other side, there was a cave/tunnel. These are spread all throughout the mountain, man-made by the military many years ago. Some are closed off, but some are still open. I lucked out with this one.

I passed through the “tunnels” to a look-out with such beautiful views. 

That closer mountain, that’s the Bastille where I climbed to last time.

Then I found a TOWER! 

(Just one more little wall to climb to get inside)

I'm in a tower at the top of a mountain in France! Eeeek! 

 Here’s a view of my res from up there:

My residence building is called "Vercors", named after one of the surrounding mountains. It's the closest building with the flat roof.

On my route down, I passed through more caves and the original entry to the fort (this wasn't open last time I was here).

As well as the "télépheriques" or the "balls", "bubbles" or "spheres" us Anglophone exchange students call them.

This morning was much more successful than I'm sure it would have been if I had spent it studying for my midterm. Who really goes on exchange to study anyways??

Bisoux,

Christina