2003-09-03
The Great French Novel, Part II...

4:01 p.m.

Here is more of my narrative of my first few days. It is REALLY REALLY long. But then, maybe you're bored, er, waiting for a calculation to finish. Or something. Regardless, you have been forewarned.

Strasbourg, CIARUS Hostel, 23/8/03

The US is the only nation that writes the date with the month first. The rest of the world, including France, puts the day first. So, that is what I am going to do in an attempt to try and get it right, sort of like trying to remember to write the new year on your checks after January 1st.

The flight to Paris was not bad. We left on time, for the most part. At first, it looked like I was going to have two seats to myself, but then, just before they closed the doors, a family of three came on and the mom and daughter sat in two of the middle seats and the dad sat next to me. Dang. Turns out, however, that the guy sitting in the third middle seat found another one somewhere else so the dad went and sat in his spot, so I did have two seats (as well as the pillow and blanket that go with them) to myself. Hot-diggedy-dog. I slept for a few hours until they served dinner. Just as I was finishing, they started the movie, Miss Congeniality. Great, I�ve seen it before, I can go back to sleep. Unfortunately, by the time I finished eating, I was caught up in the movie so I ended up watching the whole thing. Afterwards, I dozed off, and then woke up for breakfast.

We landed in Paris at Charles de Gaulle airport, and while I have heard horror stories about how bad it is, I did not think so. I didn�t really have too much trouble. I did have a conversation with the ticket agent in French. By conversation, I mean, she did most of the talking while I nodded and said �d�accord�, �oui�, or �non�.

Despite all of the French, I did not really believe that I was actually in France. Not yet.

The ride from Paris to Strasbourg was one of the most harrowing flights that I have ever been on and would have been terrified out of my pants if I were scared by that sort of thing, which was that just after take-off and just prior to landing, the plane rolled sharply side-to-side. I mean, we�re talking 20 degrees or so. Looking out of the window, it was Earth-sky-Earth-sky. Somehow, don�t think that the plane was supposed to do that. Good thing, though, was that as we were taking off, I did get to see le Tour Eiffel. Pretty impressive, that. I would have taken a picture except that one, I was sitting in the aisle seat and two, I had stupidly left my camera in my checked luggage.

We landed in Strasbourg and I got off the plane, hoping to see someone from ISU. I had sent them my flight information because they said that they would meet us at the airport if we did. However, two hours later, still no one. There was an older man who looked Russian (my advisor is Russian) so I asked him if he were Mr. Tolyarenko. No, but he was a very nice Italian (shows you what I know) who spoke only Italian and French so I got to practice my French some more.

By the way, the fancy-shmancy red-brown government passport that I have, which was supposed to guarantee me special treatment�yeah, that did not happen. Nobody was impressed. They treated it like anything else, and the only notice taken that it wasn�t your personal blue passport was one ticket agent who thought it was French, and knew that it couldn�t be, considering my pathetic grasp of the language.

Finally, I gave up and took a taxi to my hostel, CIARUS, which is short for something, but I�m not sure what. Anyway, the taxi driver spoke very little English, so he let me practice my French by asking me a lot of questions. So, within five hours of being in France, I had already had three conversations conducted almost entirely in French. When I arrived at the hostel, the room wasn�t quite ready, so I dropped off my luggage and headed out to do some exploring and find something to eat.

I spent several hours just wandering around and got a chicken sandwich from a vendor by pointing at the sandwiches and saying �le poulet, s�ils vous plait.� I went down by the canal and sat and ate my sandwich. That�s pretty much when it all hit me, what I�d done. I, who had never been abroad, was in a foreign country where I had a limited grasp of the language, and furthermore, I didn�t know a soul. It was pretty overwhelming. I was exhausted, and the room should be ready, so I headed back to the hostel, went into my room, and collapsed, clothes and all, on the bed. There were already two other girls (it was a four-person room) in there. I ended up sleeping until 8, dragged myself out of bed so that I could get my small rolly suitcase and take a shower. I went back to bed around 10 and had a decent night�s sleep. Better than the last two nights, anyway, which I spent on planes.

In the morning, we all woke up around 8:30. The checkout time was 9 AM, and as the other three were leaving, they had to book. As we were getting ready, I talked to two of them (one had already taken off; she got ready in about 5 minutes). They were both British, but one girl�s family had lived in Paris for 25 years, so she spoke fluent French. They were on a month holiday and were leaving today to go visit Germany; the other girl had lived there for two years and still remembered most of her German. I was very jealous. They were very nice and helpful.

I spent the day wandering around Strasbourg again, and figured out the tram system. I took it down to ISU in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, which I find really amusing. ISU�s full title is �International Space University, Strasbourg Campus� and it isn�t even in Strasbourg. I guess I can�t say anything; I went to the University of California, San Diego which is located not in San Diego, but in La Jolla, about as close to San Diego as Illkirch is to Strasbourg. I guess that University of California, La Jolla just didn�t have the same ring, although it would have helped with the confusion of having three schools in San Diego with the same letters in different combinations: UCSD, SDSU, and USD. Throw in UC Davis (UCD) in NorCal, and USC in SoCal, and ain�t it fun. Anyway, it was a good thing that I had gone to ISU because it had moved and the location on the map didn�t match what I had. I found it, but as it was Saturday, no one was around. Which is actually true for all of Strasbourg, as well. It was busy yesterday, with a lot of street vendors and all, but today, except for the square, it was dead. And a lot of businesses are closed, too. Like my apartment agency. There were several in main Strasbourg, but I found mine in a hole in the wall on a street that was so small that it wasn�t marked on some maps (like mine). But find it I did, and while we have to turn our key in by 9 at the hostel, I can leave my luggage here while I work things out with the agency since it won�t be open until Monday, and that is when I checkout. That is something good. Phew!

I have noticed that Strasbourg reminds me a lot of the French Quarter in New Orleans, which is not that surprising. You have the stores underneath with the apartments on top; I found mine and I am above a radiologist. It is located in a major thoroughfare of town, right next to the tram stations. I am very excited.

The cars here are very amusing. I think that that is perhaps one of the major things that makes me realize that I am not in the US anymore, much less Texas. There are no trucks. Not one. Granted, I�ve been here all of two days, but I�ve yet to see one. The cars are small. I mean, really small. The largest ones that I have seen are a couple of minivans (and even those are smaller than ours), a Jeep Grand Cherokee, Toyota Four Runner, and a Mitsubishi Montero Sport. Most of the cars are hatchbacks, and most of those have straight backs (perpendicular to the ground, like a Montero), and some have �bubble butts� � their taillights stick out a little. I have pictures of that, too. The rest of the cars are mainly German: Mercedes, Beamers, Volkswagens. The first two are so common, in fact, that I have seen one Mercedes and several Beamer Taxis. I have even seen several SmartCars, and a SmartCar dealership! They are SO small, but they are really cool. The other popular vehicle over here is the motor scooter. There are a lot of those around.

Everything over here seems smaller � the stores, the apartments, the streets (I have seen cars coming out of alleys that I would never have guessed that they fit in), the cars. Not the buildings, no. Those are huge, especially their churches and important buildings. Yesterday while I was wandering, I came across this very impressive and old cathedral. In fact, it is so impressive that it makes most tour books that speak of Strasbourg, and even in the city, it is simply called �The Cathedral�, even though there are others around. Unfortunately, it is being restored so my pictures include the scaffolding. It was open, so I went inside and took a bunch of pictures. It is HUGE. And there is this really neat pipe organ that has the pipes suspended on the wall. When I get my cord back, I will download the images and put them up for you to see. It was started in the thirteenth century and took about four hundred years to build. Wow.

Today when I came back to the room, I wanted to take a nap, but the other girls came in (I had hoped that maybe I could have the room to myself, or at least one other, but no, it was not meant to be). Turns out that one of them is an American, from California, who is also going to ISU. She has been here since Tuesday, so I was talking to her about it. Her name is Brooke. She actually spent the summer of 2001 working at JSC as an intern, working on an oral history project. She went to Embry Riddle in Prescott, AZ. Anyway, she is really nice so I think that I�ve made my first friend. She has another friend from the States who is coming to ISU, which makes four of us (including Nick), and which we figure is the US contingent. She speaks French about as well as I do, and she says that her friend, Ray, doesn�t speak it at all. Nick speaks barely any, so this is going to be interesting. Watch out France, here we come, er, are. I just hope that Nick can figure out Charles de Gaulle. I�m supposed to meet him at the Strasbourg airport, which reminds me that I need to call him in the morning to see if he is even coming on Tuesday.

Ray arrives tomorrow, so Brooke won�t be able to go exploring with me. I think that I am going to buy a 24-hour tram pass and spend all day on the trams, taking them to the end of the line and seeing where they go. Going to ISU this morning, I pretty much took the red line (or A tram) to its end in Illkirch when I went to ISU. I am really glad that I decided to live in Strasbourg. It is so much nicer, so much closer to everything. There is nothing in Illkirch. NOTHING. The tickets are 1E20, but for a pack of five tickets, it is 5E. For a 24-hour pass, it is 3E and you can ride on all the trams and buses that you want. We�ll get a discounted monthly pass from ISU. What I want is to try and find a bike and ride back and forth. It is not that far, and pretty flat.

Since Strasbourg is right on the border of France and Germany, there is a lot of German around. Most of the street signs are in German as well, at least the main streets. If there are two languages on something, the second is German. If there are three, the third is English. I have learned to love the Union Jack because the flags are how they identify the language. Speaking of the British, I have to say that one interesting thing that I have found is that people who speak English well enough that they don�t have a French accent, speak with a British one. Makes sense, but I still find it fascinating. It isn�t hard to fascinate me where languages and history are concerned. I did enter UCSD, after all, as a history major with a planned minor in French.

There is a lot here that I have to get used to, both large and small: the light switches (buttons, really), the tram signal lights, the tram and bus system, the layout of the city (pretty good handle on the central area already), the money and the cost (things are more expensive here, and then you add in the fact that the dollar is worth less and it becomes REALLY expensive), the language(s), the food (buying bread at the end of the day = NOT a good idea), the hours (most shops closed on Saturday, even more on Sunday), etc.

Here is one way to learn French: just listen to it being shouted outside your window. That�s always good. Now, they�ve switched to German. They must be doing a drinking song or something as all they keep doing is counting to 10. German I can understand!!!

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