Une semaine en France, pt. II: Hallo! Ik ben Rachel, en ik ben gek.

Or: the wedding!

One of the things I was asked a lot over the weekend and few days following is whether French weddings are different from American weddings. I generally answer that they’re pretty similar, but it would actually be more correct to say I’m not really sure, since I haven’t been to a wedding since my early teens. I guess the main points are the same: friends, family, food, booze, nice clothes, dancing, etc…but I also could not imagine a bread crocodile filled with petit fours at an American wedding. Having the married couple ride on a tractor is actually something I could see happening in North Dakota, though J

The other thing that was pretty different is how international it was: people were speaking French, German, English, Italian, even a little Dutch…it was interesting to meet older people fluent in a foreign language. The groom’s family comes from the region right on the border with Germany, and it was quite common for them to start in French, but seamlessly switch to German when they noticed their interlocutor didn’t understand.

It was all in all very lovely, and also a ton of fun—but when you mix the Erasmus-in-Berlin crew and an open bar, what else can you expect? Some of the highlights were undoubtedly:

--M. comparing me to an autumn leaf

--Hearing one of the Lac du Bois birthday songs sung in a real French context for the first time, excitedly telling this to A., singing it to him, and having him join in

--M. telling me he gets it, I can stop talking about Lac du Bois

--Me proclaiming I am an awesome drinking buddy and A. and J. wholeheartedly agreeing

--Learning the titular Dutch phrase (Hi! I’m Rachel, and I’m crazy). Apparently J. thought it was a priority that I learn this…

--Getting complimented on my pronunciation of “Geweldig” (great)

(Note: the reader should imagine a smiley face emoticon after every one of these J)

I’m sure there are more, but that’s what comes to mind!

I guess my only regret (apart from not bringing my camera, argh!!) is not brushing up on my Dutch a bit before I went. When you’ve only tried to learn a language for 2 weeks, a 2-week break is pretty long L I really wanted to say more, but I just couldn’t remember anything, and also never really learned modal verbs, so…meh. Sorry, J., maybe next time! (Hopelijk!)

Une semaine en France, pt. I: Mitfahr-Madness

This will be a long update (probably part 1 of 3), because a lot of exciting things happened. A couple of my friends of the Erasmus in Berlin crew got married this weekend, and, even though I decided about a week before the event that I could come, graciously allowed me to attend. Essentially, as soon as I found out I had a place in Hamburg for September, I scrambled to arrange transportation and lodging for the countryside wedding and my sidetrip to Paris SIMULTANEOUSLY, primarily because I couldn’t really afford to come to France twice, and I had left all of my fall and winter things in Paris, and it was starting to get cold already im hohen Norden. I lucked out though, since I found a Mitfahrgelegenheit from Hamburg to Saarbrücken for Friday—one of only two that week—and was also, amazingly, the first to contact the driver.

I may not have been so thrilled, however, if I had known exactly how long it would take to get there. I’ve done 10-hour drives before (Fargo—Chicago FTW!), but Google Maps said it would take about 6 hours, and that’s what I had mentally prepared myself for. Apparently, this may be true if you drive during the middle of the night, or even some other low-traffic time, but NOT if you travel on the weekend in Germany. Then there will be one solid traffic jam to wherever it is you want to go.

My driver actually realized this and wanted to leave at 8am. His boss, however, was also a big Google Maps believer, and decided that, since Google Maps said it would take 6 hours max to get to Saarbrücken, he could come to a meeting that morning. So our 8am departure time turned into 10am, and then, as his one meeting turned into two, finally 11:30am. This of course meant that I spent more than an hour anxiously waiting outside the hotel, while the workers wondered how in the world a taxi could be so slow. Nee, ich warte nicht auf einen Taxi, ich warte auf eine Mitfahrgelegenheit…

So we hit the road. The driver was actually pretty cool, a businessman of some sort, and was constantly phoning someone or another. He was really irked about having to leave later than expected, though, and after about 7 hours on the road, he sort of started to crack. He called his wife.

Driver: I’ve got half a mind to call him up, and say, “Greetings from Gießen”! Because there are two possibilities: either he doubts my competence, and thinks that I misplanned, or he doubts my loyalty, and thinks I was trying to get extra time off.

Wife: (calmly, almost matter-of-fact) You should! He needs to know. It’s not fair.

D: Yeah. Yeah, I think I will. Or just call him when I arrive, even if it’s midnight, just to say I got in alright.

Drama! He decides to call now rather than later, and picks out his boss’s name from the tricked-out car phone dash system.

Boss: Hallo, D!

D: Guten Tag, B! I just wanted to say, Schöne Grüße aus Gießen!

B: Ah, well, schöne Grüße aus Hafencity!

D: Yeah, we’re actually sitting in a traffic jam…weekend traffic, you know…

B: Ah, me too, unfortunately!

D: Yes, 6 hours have turned into 7 and there are still 250km to go! Needless to say, I may not be able to review all those videos tonight…

B: Oh, haha, well, that’s life…

D: Well, I just wanted to say hi! Have a nice weekend, then!

He hangs up.

Rachel: Hat er es überhaupt nicht kapiert?? (did he not get it at all??)

D: Entweder hat er es nicht kapiert, oder es interessiert ihn nicht. (Either he didn’t get it, or he’s not interested). Anyway, when I get back on Tuesday, I’m going to tell him I’m taking the rest of the week off because of the 45 hours of overtime I had to do this weekend, then when I come back the week after I’m going to put my resignation on his desk.

Yikes. He was serious, too, and started phoning some of his other business contacts to see if he could secure another job. Apparently this was not the first time this had happened…

But despite all this excitement and Aufregung, I did make it to Saarbrücken, and after another short drive (only half an hour, no traffic jams this time) I was in the tiny town of Laning, where part two of our story will take place!

Hambuich!

I'm back! And this time in a place more befitting of my blog name: Hamburg!

I'm excited to be back for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that my experiences with Germans have been overwhelmingly positive. And the trend continues, as I already have a very, very good feeling about the lab I will be working in and the people in it. I know I said this about Paris, too, but I think that may partly be due to the fact that scientists are generally awesome. Or at least the ones I know.

On the other hand, I really, really hate all the settling-in tasks I have to do when I arrive. Registering with the city, registering with the University (especially since I'm a Sonderfall--ugh), finding an apartment, getting a bank account, getting health insurance, and the list goes on....grrraaurgh. It doesn't help that my French bank suddenly decided to deny all online wire transfers I attempt. It's as if they want me to not be able to pay my rent...

I'm also not managing very well with not having a kitchen, fridge, or anywhere to store my food these first couple of weeks. In an effort to not eat out all the time, I still go to the grocery store, but this usually results in me thinking, "Hey, grapes! Raisin bread! and RITTERSPORT! That'll fill me up, right?" and it does, but with the unfortunate side effect of feeling really ill afterwards.

But it's still lovely, and certain things cheer me up a lot, such as seeing the BierBike on the Reeperbahn (www.bierbike.de), and getting asked questions by extremely polite little German kids (excuse me, Ma'am, but we're on a birthday scavenger hunt, and we were wondering if you might know what the name of that church over there is?), even if they seem to not know quite what to make of my accent and foreignness when I respond. But in a way, that is cute as well :)

Eventually I'll have to make a post about my wonderful summer experiences at Lac du Bois, (http://lacduboisbemidji.villagepages.org/), which was more fun than I ever would have predicted, but now I have to rearrange all my stuff to see if I will be able to bring it to my new place in only two trips. Whee!

Question Fail Day

When you're learning a language, awkward moments kind of come with the territory.

Take today for instance: I started reading a new French novel on the RER this morning (L'arrache-coeur, really good so far btw), and naturally ran into some words I didn't know. Rather than consult an oh-so-impersonal dictionary, I decided to ask one of the English profs what a few words meant on our way to class. The interaction went a little like this:

Me: Hey, can you help me with the meaning of a few words?

Prof: Sure, what are they?

Me: Um, let me check...(pulls out book, searching for the mostly frequently used unknown words)...how about "crottes de bique"?

Prof: What?

Me: (a little louder) "crottes de bique"? (points)

Prof: Ahhh....goat shit!

And "shit" was about what I was thinking, after having said that in a hallway full of students....

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, however. Once, when I was out in a restaurant with a friend of mine, I spontaneously decided to ask about a word that came up during one of the ads on TV.

Me: Ca veut dire quoi, flore ? (What does "flore" mean?)

C: (embarrassed, sideways glance) Euh...comment expliquer... (Um...how to explain...)

Me: (looking at her expectantly)

C: La flore c'est la bactérie dans les intestins mais aussi dans le (she lowers her voice to whisper and looks right and left) VAGIN (The flora is the bacteria in the intestines but also in the...VAGINA)

I had to snicker. I couldn't help it! Apparently "vaginal flora" exists in English, too, but I necessarily think of "flora and fauna"--wildlife and plants and such, and to think of such a vibrant and lush ecosystem existing in the vagina...well, it was quite amusing! (even if I admit it must be true on a microbiological scale).

Somehow, this all made me feel a bit like a child. How many hella awkward things must we have asked while growing up? Unfortunately I can't remember any right now, although I do remember the first time I experimented using my middle finger to point to people...

But why question fail day, you ask? The next two words I asked from my book turned out to be: 1. invented by the author, and 2. blotting paper. "Goat shit" was by far the most useful.

Preemptive Nostalgia

It just hit me that I only have 2.5 months left in Paris. 2.5 months! (I'm a bit torn about whether to write this with a comma, but I guess I'll stick to my roots).

I was just in Cologne for a couple days, although not for the same reason as most people. I was taking exams, while most people were wearing ridiculous costumes and getting falling-down drunk before 10am. I had actually completely forgot Karneval would be starting, so this was a bit of a shock. It was an interesting experience, though, kind of like a no-age-limits, wasted Halloween. What I thought was kind of cool was that groups of friends would all wear the same costume, presumably to find each other better in a crowd.

Being in Germany was nice, but for once, I also really missed France. It's hard to explain why; was it just too clean, too orderly? Hardly, at least not on Thursday when Karneval started. Did I miss the cafés on every corner? The fromageries? Or was the large amount of sketchy people in Köln (at least around the Hauptbahnhof) just off-putting? I really can't put my finger on it.

It did, however, make me wonder where I will be happiest. I think a piece of my heart will always be in both places (and I guess in the U.S., too. And Italy).

And I definitely think I won't be ready to leave at the end of April.

How do you manipulate the baguette?

It's been a long time. I'm annoyed with myself for not better cataloging my adventures, mostly because a lot of great stuff has happened, which, lacking a written record, is now sinking into the obscure depths of my memory. Here is a small taster, though:

I had my students prepare a short presentation on a holiday they celebrate with their family, and one chose the Chinese New Year. At the end, I gave the others a chance to ask questions, and one boy raised his hand.

"But..." he hesitated, thinking. "How do you manipulate the baguette?"

I was entirely baffled; I was imagining breaking bread, perhaps in some unique, creative way somehow connected to the Chinese New Year...but then I remembered. Baguettes is the French word for (among other things) chopsticks.

"Chopsticks!" I exclaimed. "How do you use chopsticks!"

Problem solved.

Another classic occurred today when I was asking the class to list characters in a royal court in medieval times. One girl suggested "valet". I replied that this was the middle ages, and there were no cars yet, but perhaps we could list "carriage driver." Little did I know, "valet" also means "knave" in French...

These are actually wonderful illustrations of how much you can learn about a foreign language simply by examining mistakes its speakers make in your own native language!

On va prendre le risque

I passed another great French milestone yesterday--I experienced my first French strike!

It's kind of funny--I don't remember EVER being affected by a strike anywhere else I lived, but France is rather notorious for workers strikes (admit it, you are), and it was pretty excepted that I should live through at least one during my time here.

Essentially, this is what happened: both the RATP and SNCF workers who run the RER A and RER B (like S-Bahn/distance trains) were on strike (from what I understand, they had to get extra training and wanted to be paid more because of it), so the RER B--what I take--was only running piecewise, with no service between Gare du Nord and Denfort Rochereau. This was not a huge problem for me, since I take the normal métro in the morning to get to the Gare du Nord and then go to the suburbs from here. However, there were also only 1 of 2 trains running on the line (or 2 of 4, according to some sources :P).

50% is not so bad, I thought, and left at 9:30 instead of the usual 10 AM to get to my 11:30 class. What I did not anticipate, however, is that they would be leaving from a different track. After running around the station, which, while quite well-marked for the actual lines, is not very well-marked for track numbers, I finally found where I was supposed to be departing from. I thought.

Everyone else seemed similarly confused. "Does this train go to Charles DeGaulle?" asked some tourists.

"Yes, we think so," responded one of our fellow passengers. Well, that's reassuring. Sort of.

Others continued to board. "Excusez-moi, mais savez-vous si ce train va à Charles de Gaulle ?" a man asked me.

"Um, je suis pas sûre," I replied. "Il y a quelqu'un qui a dit que oui, mais je n'ai rien vu personellement." (I'm not sure...someone said it did, but I didn't see anything personally.)

Another man got in. He addressed the man who had just spoken to me. "Est-ce que ce train va à Charles de Gaulle ?"

"Nous, on pense que oui, mais on ne sait pas," he replied. "On va prendre le risque." (We think so, but we don't really know. We're going to take the risk.)

This answer just tickled me. Once again, despite an utter lack of information and the potential for chaos and confusion, the French manage to keep a level head. Bravo :)