Rennes Part DEUX

Hello again everyone!

I won’t start classes at the actual university here until September 20th, when the rest of the French students start classes. In the meanwhile however, I’ll be taking a week and a half of intensive French alllll day long with the other American students in my group at a language school. It’s funny because my host mom asked me when I would be starting classes “à la fac”. I was so confused? “At the what?” I’m thinking… “the fac??”. I said “à Rennes II?” (Rennes II is the French University where I’ll be studying.) “Oui oui, la fac.” I guess they call the campus/university “the fac”, which is short for “the faculty”. I found it funny because when I think of faculty, I think of the faculty as in the professors, so I was thinking that she was asking me when I would be starting classes at the professors.

Also, I went out for my first experience with real French people (real?!) the other day. One of the other Richmond students here- Christine Wehrli- has a host brother who’s around 23 or 24, so he invited her who invited me to go to a pub to watch one of the rugby matches with him and his friends. His friends were nice, and two seemed especially eager to speak in English with me and Christine. It was the first rugby game I had ever seen, and I found it fascinating. To me, rugby is a strange combination of American football and football (soccer) that I don’t understand. Oh, and it’s HUGE here- did I mention that? Interesting how I’ve hardly ever heard of it in the US (maybe it’s due to my being totally out of the sports loop in general, even with US sports) and yet it’s incredibly popular in much of the rest of the world. Every time I would try to ask one of the guys what was happening, he would try to answer me in English (even if I asked in French) even though his English wasn’t fab (not like my French is “fab” either!), and it was a bit like the typical French stereotype: “Bahhhhh… uuhhhh… iz zwhen zoo… waz zee word? Keek? zee bol…etc. etc.”. And every time France would get a lead, you’d hear a bunch of “ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!!!!” (“GO GO GO!!! in English) from [mostly] the men in the pub. You can say I was greatly humored by the whole situation. We didn’t stay until the end of the game because Christine’s host brother and his friends had to go.

After they left, I walked downtown to one of the big city square centers- almost like a enormous quad that’s surrounded by buildings. (Picture below) Events are always taking place in this square, and there are others throughout the city that hold events/exhibits too. For the whole month of September and the beginning of October, there is a photography exhibition of about 20 or so photographs by Steve McCurry (an American, I think, but really not sure…) that are blown up really huge so you can really seen them. His photographs are INCREDIBLE- taken all over the world, and mostly deal with capturing the lives of common people/giving western cultures an astonishing view into the world of most cultures with which we are not familiar. Luckily my Richmond amiga- I mean “copine” (girlfriend, in French)- Christine took some pictures of a few of the photographs. I’ve included one below.

A few of Steve McCurry's photos from his exhibit downtown

Anyways, at this particular city square on this particular day there was a type of fair going on (I later found out it was a benefit for kids with Leukemia) with a band on a stage, clowns walking around, lots of people either watching the band or going to the different stations that were set up for the kids and what not. When I got closer, you can’t believe what kind of music I heard… the BLUES!!!! You can say I was surprised! There were a bunch of 40-60 year-old [French?] men up on stage singing all these blues/classic rock songs I recognized like “Sweet Home Alabama”. I went to sit down in a group of chairs off to the side to listen to the band and was soon approached by a clown who might have felt sorry for me because I was alone. I’m not sure, but he was really friendly! It soon became apparent that I wasn’t French when I had to ask him several times over the loud music, “Quoi?” (what?), so he asked me where I was from (I get asked that several times a week… used to it by now!). I told him from the US- CA- and he smiled. Soon two little girls came over (I found out they were his daughters- really cute!) and he set them up on his lap. He told them [in French] “This girl’s from CA!” I continued chatting with them, and then the little girl told her dad that I spoke French like that “one other girl we met who mispronounced the words too”. Hahahaha… I thought that was pretty funny- being told you don’t speak that well by a little 6 year-old! I told her French pronunciation was difficult for Anglophones. Soon they left, and I got up to leave too. As I was leaving, the band was singing the well-known song “smmookkeee on the waattterrrr, fire in the sky-I”. I had fun singing that. Here in Rennes, most people know a little bit of English, but there aren’t tons (like in Paris) that are completely fluent. Hence, I enjoy singing the words to the songs in English that play on the radio. I’ve found English to be almost exciting(!) to speak since being in Rennes… not like I ever speak in English, of course not- here to learn French! ;) Oh, and I can’t tell you how shocked I am with how much American music they play on the radio here. Just shows you how mainstream pop culture is kind of the same in a way all over the world.

The mayor of Rennes in his welcome address to the

all of the international students

Rennes II students siting down to eat after getting their trays of food from the cafeteria. I don't know about you, but I find this hilarious!

Another funny experience I had recently was at a Pizzeria I went to with some friends. I ordered a personal-sized pizza (picture below) that was delicious (yes, it was so delicious that I took a picture), but the fact remained that it was just too big, so I only ate half and was going to eat the other half for dinner since I was going to be out walking around all day. With the other half of the pizza on my plate, the waiter came by and almost took it away. I told him to please leave it and not take it away, and instead asked him for a box that I could take it home in. He gave me this really weird look that I didn’t understand at all. Wasn’t taking home leftovers normal? I was confused. He came back a few minutes later with this odd plastic container that I think had been [up to that point] used for holding ingredients back in the kitchen. I guess no one ever asked to take home their leftovers!!! After that, he tried to speak some English with us. “Zank zou… Goodzbyee.” I found that pretty hilarious that it was after I asked for the to-go box that he started trying to speak some English with us. I guess it was obvious (I don’t know) that we were foreigners, and more specifically Americans, because maybe it’s an American thing to do? I don’t know, but the whole thing surprised me because normally the French are super energy-environment-conscious, as in they don’t unnecessarily waste things! And yet the waiter was going to toss out the leftovers of my perfectly good pizza that I hadn’t finished! Later when I got home, I recounted the story to my host mom, who thought it was funny.

Back to cheese… yes, I must mention cheese again in this post, even though I mentioned it in the last post! I’m learning that cheese is nothing without baguette (they eat it all the time!), and vice versa, though I suppose baguette and butter are pretty tight too… hm, well anyways, I recently tried one of the most famous French cheeses “Camembert”. I didn’t like it at all the first time I tried it… the smell turned me off so much (and this isn’t even really a “smelly” cheese compared to many others!). However, I’ve been learning that when it comes to the “smellier” cheeses, you really have to resist smelling them (if you’re weak like me ;)), and just eat them. Trust me, they’re actually really good! So yeah, me and Camembert… we’re on good terms now, we’re buds. Now, I must say that this does not in any way mean that I will be turning this now good experience into becoming super adventurous and really going out there with the different types of cheese I try. I stick to what we eat “chez moi” (at my house), and am willing to try everything there. But I will not try any cheese that, upon smelling it, makes me want to vomit. Ok. Good. Now that we have that understood, let’s move on, no? ;) Actually, this has been a pretty long post, and I don’t want to overtire those of you that have stuck through the whole thing, so I’ll end here. Until next time!! Grosses bises! (Lots of love!)

Me and Christine with our wine teacher after he had given us and the rest of the CIEE group a two-hour presentation on the art of wine tasting! (Several different samples of wine included.)