Cravings

So, for some reason, I have been craving just about every food in the past couple of days that isn't readily available here. These include turkey and cheddar sandwiches (cheddar cheese is nowhere to be found...and deli turkey is difficult to find), Mexican food, and chocolate chip cookie dough. I found the French version of chocolate chip cookies in FranPrix (a grocery store) today, which were tasty, but not quite the same thing as the American version! The French version is a crispy, airy thing, and it does not have a vanilla cookie base (it has a very, very mild chocolate base). I'm going to be on the lookout for cheddar cheese everywhere I go, though, because I want a turkey sandwich like crazy!

I spent the night at my friend Megan's homestay last night. We were both craving breakfast food (because that is yet another thing that the French really don't do), so we made scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. It was amazing. If I was allowed to cook at my homestay, I would probably make them for myself for dinner again tonight! After breakfast, we went to the Paris version of Chinatown (it wasn't too exciting), then did some shopping along Boulevard Haussman. We took the tramway for the first time ever today, too...it's not nearly as fast as the Metro, but it was very quiet in comparison.

I'm excited to find out where I get to move on Monday. Staying at Megan's last night made me see how awesome a homestay can be...and I want to have an awesome experience in every part of my trip to Paris!

Riley =)

McDo

Quick update as I eat my petit dejeuner (breakfast) at McDo! I must say, even though I am not a fan of McDonald's in the US, the French version is awesome. The restaurants are all really nice, there's free wireless in them, and they have a totally different menu (but it's still cheap). For example, I am having a caramel macchiato and a croissant for breakfast. It was 4 euro, which is a steal for this city! I've been eating at boulangeries (bakeries) most mornings here because my host family gives me bread and water for breakfast, and that isn't too tasty. And don't knock me for eating at an American restaurant...everywhere else is so expensive! Especially along the Champs-Elysees, where I live, because they cater to tourists who don't know any better (keep that in mind when you visit Paris someday...everything is cheaper the further you go from the Champs-Elysees, for the most part).



After I leave here, I'm taking the Metro to the Eiffel Tower because my IES group is eating lunch at one of the restaurants inside of it! I'm excited...hopefully I will be able to go all the way to the top this time. Last time I was in Paris, we ran out of time and only got halfway up.

At School

Bonjour! I am sitting at IES, my school, right now, enjoying the wireless Internet. I just got done talking with the IES Housing Coordinator and it looks like I may be getting moved to a new homestay on Monday. I talked to her for awhile and she asked me to describe my perfect host family...and after describing it, she said she thought she had a better match for me and wanted me to reflect until Monday, but on Monday she can do something if I still want to move. This makes me very excited because 1.) I will actually be able to sleep at night because I won't be having allergy issues and 2.) I will have Internet!

Besides talking about homestay issues, I had my first day of real classes. I am in French 301, which I think will be pretty nice. The professor seems cool and he speaks at like the perfect speed. I was afraid I'd end up with someone who spoke way too fast to understand! I am also excited that I tested into 301 because I was afraid I might not test into it, even though that's the level I should be at. I also had French Lit today, but I'm going to switch out that class for History of Paris (most likely) because the French Lit professor expects us to already know some stuff about French Lit...and I know absolutely nothing about French literature.

I know I've said it a couple of times already...but Skype is awesome. I have been videochatting and it works great! Granted, most of you probably aren't going to be up at the hours I have been videochatting (9am my time...3am in Indiana), but maybe if my new homestay has Internet, I'll be able to chat at better hours of the day!

I only have classes Monday through Thursday...so it's the weekend now! I'm eating lunch at the Eiffel Tower tomorrow!

Bon week-end!
Riley =)

Bienvenue

Well, I’m in Paris!

Paris itself is pretty amazing from the little bit of traveling around I’ve done so far. Today was orientation at IES, so I took the Metro from my closest station, George V, to Champs-Elysees Clemeneau, then switched lines and got off at Gaite for IES! It’s a short, simple journey, which is good since I’ll be making it every day! Two other girls from school live by me, too, so we may commute together. I’m currently typing this entry out on my laptop at about 11pm on Tuesday night, but it won’t be posted til tomorrow morning.

Many of you probably know what I’m talking about when I mention my “don’t eff with me” face. Well, I’ve decided that all Parisians always have their “don’t eff with me” faces on. On the Metro, people go out of their way to make sure they don’t look you in the eye. People will stare at their shoes, pretend to be really interested in advertisements, or just stare into space just to avoid eye contact. No one smiles on the street except for foreign tourists. In fact, one of easiest ways to spot an American tourist (that I’ve noticed so far) is that they are walking around, looking at everyone and smiling at them. A Parisian will just walk briskly with no expression on their face, ignoring other people around them. Also, Parisians seem to wear lots of black, don’t do flip flops, and love the whole leggings trend. A couple of the girls I’ve met at IES today and I walked around the Champs-Elysees after class because we wanted to look for places to update our wardrobe and be more Parisian. I don’t think I’m going to give in to the whole no flip flops thing (unless it keeps raining like it has been) because I love them far too much, but I’ve got the other two pretty well covered without buying more stuff…which is excellent because the exchange rate definitely is not in my favor here! Also, people wear scarves all the time, even though it’s almost June. And I brought my red-and-black checkered scarf and, while wearing it today, got mistaken for a French person by an actual French person at the Metro station (she asked me if I had a lighter…French people still smoke a lot, too).

As you may have gathered from the last paragraph, orientation is going well. Today was day one and tomorrow is the last day. I met a lot of very cool people today. There are only two guys in my group, and they went shopping for a bit with us, but wandered off when the girls all started getting excited by all the stores. So, me and 5 or 6 other girls ended up forming something of a group…we went to Laduree, the patisserie that I have wanted to go to for a very long time! We bought macarons, which were amazing! I bought 4 and ate them over the course of the afternoon…caramel et fleur de sel (caramel and sea salt), citron (lemon), chocolat (chocolate), and chocolat amer (dark chocolate). If you’ve never had a macaron…you should! And I’m not talking about the coconut macaroon things that you all know from the US. Macarons are meringue sandwich cookies filled with either ganache, fruit preserves, buttercream, or caramel. Here’s a picture I took of my citron and chocolat amer ones…

Really, the only thing that isn’t going so well is the host family thing. My family is very, very nice, but it’s very lonely living in their apartment. They have five grown children (not young children like I thought before) with kids of their own spread all over Paris, so they aren’t really home often. When they are home, they like to keep to themselves and pretty much stay in their room after dinner. It’s kind of annoying because I was hoping to be able to talk more in the house so I could learn more French. We speak French at dinner when I eat with them (which is only 3 nights per week), but when they have dinner guests (as they did tonight), they start speaking very rapid French and I just kind of sit there confused. It’s also annoying because it kind of just leaves me sitting alone all evening with very little to do. They do not have Internet (not even dial-up) or TV. They have a handful French DVDs, but I can’t use them on my laptop because they’re a different region (and they’re located in one of the rooms that is generally closed off to me). So, I’ve kind of just been sitting in my room after dinner listening to music or watching Heroes on my iPod. However, I’m very quickly running out of Heroes episodes to watch. They told me I could get free wireless at McDonald’s (which they call “McDo,” pronounced “Mac-Doe,” here), so I walked 15 minutes or so to the nearest one (on the Champs-Elysees…it’s a very creepy McDonald’s in the basement of a shopping center) only to find out that they do not actually have working wireless. My iPod managed to pick up a weak signal from somewhere along the Champs-Elysees so I checked my email…but then it stopped working again. So, yes, I am going slightly stir crazy. I’m in Paris, a huge, amazing city, yet I am sitting in my room bored for hours at night. I thought maybe other people in my group were in the same situation…but it turns out I’m the only one who doesn’t have wireless Internet in their homestay and most of the other families are young and very open and conversational. So, I’m going to talk to the IES people tomorrow about this and see if maybe I can get switched. M. and Mme. De Pommery are very, very nice, but I like to talk and get to know people beyond just casual dinner conversation! And I want to learn French and I can’t do that if I’m only speaking it over dinner!

So, that’s my very lengthy update for now! I have to give a HUGE thank you to Mom, Drew, and Jordan, because their texts have caught me just at the moments when I really needed to hear from someone at home. And American humor trumps French humor any day, and goodness knows many of those texts have made me laugh and stop feeling sorry for myself. My cell phone bill may be ridiculous, Mom and Dad, so I apologize for that…but I will write you a check because I think my sanity’s worth it =)

Love you all, and I’d love to hear from you.

Riley =)

Free Wireless in Philadelphia!

After walking around the airport in Philadelphia forever, I found some free wireless! Here is a picture to illustrate how I feel about this:

So, I'm sitting here in a food court at Philadelphia International Airport, listening to music and chillin. In about 2 hours and 15 minutes, I'll be on my way to Paris! It's crazy that this is finally actually here...I feel like I've been talking about it forever. I still don't know if it has quite hit me yet, though, cause I'm very calm and haven't started freaking out about anything yet.

Everything went well this morning (well, other than me sleeping through my alarm). I was up until 4:30am last night and discovered that Skype works really well...so those of you with microphones on your computers should definitely download Skype (it's free) and call me with it. If I find some wireless access somewhere by my home in Paris, you can call me with it on my laptop and we can talk over the computer for free. It's like 2 cents a minute if you call a phone with it.

Well, I'm going to miss everyone. Thanks to everyone who stopped in to say hi before I left!

And now my adventure begins...

Riley =)

Call Me

So, for those of you would would like to keep in touch with me while I'm overseas, I now can tell you how exactly to do that! I will be carrying two cell phones (my American one and a French one). You can still text my American cell phone and I will get your texts. If you want to talk to me on the phone, you have two options...

Option 1 - Call my French cell phone. My French cell phone's number is +33 63 790 7113. To make the +, you just hold down 0 on cell phones until it changes to a + and on a regular phone, you dial 011 instead. All incoming calls to my French cell phone are free, so we can talk all day if you want. If you want to call me this way, check out Skype (you can call France for 2 cents a minute with them) or go to Wal-Mart and get an AT&T calling card (they're a little more difficult to use, but they get better international minutes for the price).

Option 2 - Text my American cell phone OR my French cell phone (incoming texts are free, too). I'm not going to put the number on here because you should already have it (and if you don't for some reason, email me). If I am someplace where I can, I will call you back with the calling card I have. I only have one calling card for two months, though, so I probably wouldn't be able to talk for a very long time. Also, there's no guaranteeing that I will be somewhere where I have access to a landline phone, and that's necessary to use my phone card.

So, there's your phone options. You can always email or Facebook me, too. I just won't have access to the Internet all the time, so I can't guarantee a very quick response. And, for those of you who really want to appeal to the old-fashioned romantic in me, you can always write me a letter and send it to the address I posted before.

Hope to hear from everyone =)

Riley =)

Allo?

I finally got a hold of my host family today! I tried to call them yesterday, but they weren't home. So, this afternoon, I tried again...and my host mom, Madame de Pommary, answered. Now, this phone call was positively terrifying because she was speaking in really fast French and I was trying to translate everything in my head, which wasn't moving quite as fast. She seems nice. She was definitely patient with me on the phone, since it seemed like the majority of what I said was "Je ne comprends pas" (I don't understand) or "Oui" (Yes).

So, from the conversation with her, I gathered that my host family does not have Internet (sad day for me), has five kids (ranging in age from 3 to 27!), and she will be at home when I arrive Monday morning (or lundi matin, as she repeated many a time in the conversation!). I felt silly because I only used the present and future tenses while talking to her because I couldn't think to conjugate and translate simultaneously...but I don't think the family speaks much English, so I should be speaking French like a champion by the time I get home!

Tonight, I've been packing my travel backpack, rolling all of my clothes to save space and reduce wrinkles. I'm trying to pack as lightly as possible, but that's proving to be an interesting challenge! I'm not good at packing lightly!

I can't believe I'm leaving in 5 days...wow...

Riley =)

One Week and Mail

Only seven more days until I leave...crazy, isn't it??

If anyone would like to send me snail mail while I'm overseas (it would totally make my day if you did!), here's my address in Paris:

IES Paris Center
c/o Riley Steinmetz
77, rue Daguerre
Paris 75014
France

So, make my day...send me mail =) I'd love to hear from you!

Riley =)

Two Weeks

Two weeks from today, I'll be sitting in orientation in Paris! I've gotten a lot crossed off of my to do list, so that's always good. I got my new laptop, an HP TX2000. This is what it looks like:
It's only 12 inches long and like an inch and a half thick. It has an integrated webcam, too, which means I can video chat with those of you who also have them while I'm in Paris! I may look a little silly chilling in a Parisian cafe talking to my laptop (I don't think my host family has Internet), but oh well!

Today, I'm going backpack shopping so that I have something easy to use on my weekend trips. I've been talking to some of the people traveling with me on Facebook, and they all seem like they want to take plenty of weekend trips, too! It looks like the south of France (Marseille, Nice, Cannes...the French Riviera, basically) is a lock cause everyone wants to do that. A lot of people want to go to London, too, and some have thrown out Madrid, Amsterdam, Belgium (for the chocolate), and Italy. As I'm sure you all know, I'm down for anything.

Well, au revoir for now!

Riley =)

Housing Placement

I got my housing placement! I will be living in the 8th arrondissement, right by the Champs-Élysées, at 5 rue de Quentin Bauchart. For those of you who don't know much about Paris, this is AMAZING because the 8th is one of the busiest business districts of Paris. The Champs-Élysées is one of the fanciest streets in the world, as well as one of the world's most exclusive shopping districts. I will be living with a couple, but I don't have any information on their age, if they have children, or anything like that. I have to call them sometime in the next couple of days, which makes me a little nervous since my conversational French isn't the greatest.

Here's a map (if it works) to give you a little better of an idea of where I'll be living...

Introduction

I had to write a letter in French introducing myself to my host family. Let's see if any of you can actually read it...

Je m’appelle Riley Steinmetz. Je suis une femme de 21 ans d'Indianapolis, Indiana, dans la région de Midwest des Etats-Unis. Je suis une étudiante qui étudie la psychologie, la chimie, et français à la Université de Ball State à Muncie, Indiana. Je graduerai dans 2009 et je vais à l'école médicale, avec les espoirs de devenir un médecin. J'apprécie écouter la musique, écriver, cuire, la cuisine, faire les courses, et sortir avec mes amis. J'aime le chocolat sombre, et j'espère que je peux cuire quelques biscuits pour vous pendant que je suis en France! Mes amis aux Etats-Unis aiment manger des biscuits et les petits gâteaux que je cuis.

Je viens d'une famille de cinq. Ma mère, Debbie, est un professeur à un lycée. Mon père possède sa propre entreprise. J'ai deux plus jeunes frères ou soeurs, mon frère s’appelle Jordan et ma soeur s’appelle Hillary. Jordan assiste aussi la Université de Ball State. Hillary est dans un lycée. Nous avons un chien s’appelle Maddy. J'ai beaucoup de tantes, d'oncles, et de cousins, et je suis très proche à eux.

Je suis très exciteé à vous rencontrer et avoir l'occasion de parler le français en France! J'ai été dans les classes françaises depuis deux ans à mon université, et j'espère que mon français améliore par le temps je pars Paris! Toujours, j’ai été beaucoup de curiosité en France et la culture française, et je suis excité à éprouver la vie française. Je vous verrai bientôt!

Final Mailing

Well, it's getting down to the final days! Only 18 days until I leave for Paris!

I got my final mailing of information today. It has a list of all the participants in the program (there's a TON of them from IU...so maybe I'll run into some of them in the airport or something), plus information on how to get from the airport in Paris to your homestay and things like that. I also got my visa approval, which means the French government says I'm good to go. I should be getting my information about my homestay next week. When I get that, I'm supposed to call them! That should be interesting, since my conversational French isn't exactly the best (which is exactly why I'm going to France!).

Now, all that's left to do is buy my new laptop (that'll be happening within the week, most likely) and a few other odds and ends (toiletries, a backpack, etc.).

Let me know if you want to hang out before I leave!

Riley =)