A (multi-cultural) day in Paris

Yesterday I spent a wonderful day in Paris with some of the other partners! We did some sightseeing and wandered through the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Opera house. I was obsessed with the stained-glass windows and was very upset that I didn't bring our good camera (P thinks I will lose it! ..which to be perfectly honest is always a strong possibility). So these pictures are from my old and trusty 4 megapixel cannon from 2004 (if it ain't broke..!). The cathedral was definitely a highlight, but so was the fabulous Japanese restaurant we stopped in for lunch!! I didnt even realize how much I could miss a gyoza :) 

After a hearty and satisfying lunch, we set out on our predetermined quest to find "Tang Freres", a well-known asian grocery store in Paris, in order to stock up on some of the supplies that Fonty lacks, like rice noodles, sauces, spices, dumplings, and snacks! After a successful shop, we trained back to Fontainbleau just in time for the Heart of Europe dinner.

This whole week was Heart of Europe week! Bidding for national weeks happens months before, and the P3's (the class ahead of P) bid for the right to host a week celebrating their nation. This week the students from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria hosted a week celebrating thier cultures, of which the beergardens, chocolates and jagermeister were highlights! Each day there were different activities like a jagermeister competion, chocolate-tasting, movie night, and last night was the climax with an Octoberfest-themed dinner of sausages, bratwurst and mini kegs. Everyone got their own beer stein and danced to the music of a Bavarian band, with a very interestingly-dressed lead singer! (I think only AG and BG will get this reference, but remember the 65 year-old female lead singer of the band when we went to the bar in the trailer in PR? Picture her, but in a dirndl outfit.) Tomorrow night is the finale and is a Karnival-themed chateau party. Somehow I have to find a costume, but we will see about that...



Parlez-vous Francais?

So it was the first official week of classes and time has flown! P is already busy with more reading than he can possibly finish, group assignments, and career workshops while I have been busy joining clubs! Last week I joined the:

•  cooking club
• running club (don't laugh, im going to do it!)
• french conversation club
• girls movie night club
• shopping in paris club
• art and culture club
• yoga club
• wine and cheese club
• book club!

That should just about keep me busy for the next 4 months! In the last 5 days I have already  gone for a 4km run (anyone who knows me well knows that this is BIG news), started my french class on campus, started seriously working on my thesis (well, transcribing anyway..), went shopping in Paris for les soldes, and learned a new french recipe that I can easily make on two burners! (Poulet a la Basquaise - doesn't that sound fancy?! It's not, but it's goood!). I also went to the local market (in the centre of town every tues/fri/sun) and it was just awesome! Though it was brutally embarassing trying to speak french, I bought so much fresh produce, cheese and meat (and honey and pastries and kitchen things) that I could barely carry it all home!

Now with all of this club-joining and market-shopping and french-learning happening, you're probably wondering what P's opinion of all this is. He summed it up the other night after we got home from a FULL day of school (8am-7pm) and a dinner out with friends (until late!). He was telling me about all the readings and assignments he had to do over the next 2 days and just looked EXHAUSTED and I was starting to worry and feel guilty about all the fun I was having.. and then he ended his long-winded explaination with, "I love this!".

We have also made some slight but significant modifications to our life that have made living in little Avon a little more likeable. For instance, I learned the bus schedule and can now catch the bus to the main road in fontainebleau with little trouble (the bus only comes once or twice an hour so this is a big deal!), we have found a short-cut through the castle grounds so the walk to school is now only 30 minutes instead of 40 (baby steps), and I am now the proud owner of a french telephone number and bank account! One TINY hurdle left: we don't yet have a bank card to access our money, but I am staying positive (otherwise I will go completely crazy!) Once we have our chequebook, we can rent a car and I will be able to say au revoir to blisters and mud for the rest of the winter!

Our apartment is also growing on us. When we first moved in the dryer was broken in the building, and our apartment door (that opens into our bedroom) was located in the laundry room. So every day we had to pass through the laundry room that smelled like mould and wet dog and made our bedroom smell like that too. But now, after 2 weeks, the dryer has been fixed and the smell has returned to normal! Probably the best change of all is that I have learned that my microwave also doubles as a grill. So I have figured out how to cook fish and meat and I'm just so relieved! Only one thing left: because we are in the ground floor of this very old little building, we have a lot of spiders (les spidres, as I call them). P is deathly afraid of spiders so this has been really interesting, espeically after a run-in with Pierre (yes, I named one), on the couch!! As long as they remain out of sight, I think it'll be fine... :)

I've also learned some very interesting things about life here that I didn't know before, for instance, you can't buy 1% milk - the choices are full cream or half cream! Pair this with my daily baguette diet and I'm in trouble! (Good thing I joined the running club!) I shuddered through my first bowl of cereal that was more or less floating on top of the milk(!), but I think there might be something to whole milk, nutritionally, so i'll keep you updated. Another thing we are loving is the cafe culture! there is no such thing as take-away coffee because, as my french teacher says: "c'est fou!" (that's crazy!) Coffee is for sitting and enjoying and people-watching and reading the newspaper. P and I indulged in cafe life on sunday afternoon for about 3 hours and it was heaven! One thing I could live without: dog poo on the sidewalk. Everywhere. I read about it in blogs before I came and I'm writing about it now, because it's just wrong. I can't possibly enjoy the 30 minute walk to town because im constantly dodging shit! And the combination of big dogs and small sidewalks is treacherous.

Saturday night was our first Chateau party, and it didn't disappoint! Sponsored by one of the major Consulting companies that recruits at the school, there was free booze and great music all night (literally, the last bus home left the party at 6am), however with all the students (some hammered) and the free-for-all booze, it felt a lot like a frat party from our good old undergraduate days. Which was fine for the night - we felt like we were 21 again! Eeks, does that make me sound old?? crap.

This post is getting very long so I think it's time to go for now!

a bientot!

Fontainbleau/Avon and Orientation week

Our initial impressions of Fontainebleau have been very lovely, especially with the beautiful weather that we have had the past week. Cold air and sunny skies made for picturesque walks on the castle grounds and easy exploring through Fontainebleau. HOWEVER, about 4 days in, the romantic 40-minute strolls to campus along grassy trails have turned into 40-minutes of cursing and sloshing through rain and mud. After one heated conversation running to campus late, mud-covered and drenched ("I will never be able to wear heels!!"), and a long up-hill walk home from Carrefour in the rain with bags of groceries ("why aren't we in Singapoooore!"), we have since decided to rent a car for the semester. Sadly, deciding it doesn't make it so. We have encountered some slight roadblocks in terms accessing money and setting up a french bank account and mobile phones, but soon we will be on our feet! (and also hopefully a new set of wheels). 

Our first week has been busy! One thing I am really happy about is that the school has done a really great job connecting students and partners with the school community and so even before my first day of orientation, I had a coffee date with 5 of the other partners! It was such a relief to me to get to know the other "mba wives" and to see that we are all in the same boat, wondering what is in store for us this year, and what goals and plans we can make for ourselves along the way. Many are taking french courses, working in Paris or London, travelling back and forth from their home countries, pregnant or planning to be pregnant, planning new hobbies, and on and on. I'm happy to know that I will be in good company this year.

What else is really cool is that partners are welcomed on campus, and I have my own access badge, can take out books from the library and join the gym. On the first day of school, P and I both had orientations! We each got a package of information and our own designated handbooks (his a lot denser than mine!) and we were given campus tours. There was a welcome ceremony, complete with champagne, and lots of meeting and greeting. Each day we had our own schedule of activities. Mine centered around lengthy breakfast and lunch dates with partners, partners' clubs presentations and workshops about living in France while P had presentations by career services, faculty, group projects, and (yesterday) his first official class. Today he had an Outward Bound day from 8am to 6pm so I still havent seen him yet!  Im really curious about how the day went. I have dinner and a bottle of wine waiting for him like a good mba wife. On that note, I can't tell you how weird it is to be a "partner". It's a whole mental shift for me that started on the day that the woman at HSBC in Vancouver opened our Euro account. "What is your occupation?" she asked. "I'm a graduate student" I said. I watched as she filled in "Homemaker".

Not that I think being a homemaker is a bad thing, on the contrary, it is extremely valuable. I have just never thought of myself as one before, and I've also never dedicated a whole year to the job. Someone send me a recipe for making dinner on a hotplate before I fail at my new profession!

I am considering taking a french language class here (there is one offered on campus for partners) as Im realizing how much it is needed here! Luckily, Im not doing so bad, and if needed I can throw together a sentence that makes enough sense to be slightly understood. It would be nice to have some more confidence though, and be able to converse well. Yesterday, P and I had dinner together in town and parted ways so that he could attend a seminar and I could take the bus home. The problem was that I didnt know my way home on the bus and didn't realize how roundabout the route was! I couldn't for the life of me find a bus stop going in the direction of home! Realizing that I wouldnt make it unless I stopped to ask someone, I stumbled into a shop. It went like this:

Me: "S'il vous plait, parlez-vous anglais?"

Gruff looking man at the counter: "Non."

Me: "(crap). Oh, um, Ou est-ce que, uh, ou est la bus, i mean "boos" de Avon, a avon? oh dear."

Man: "Avon? la bas" (pointing across the street)

Me: "Oh great! Ligne C ou A?"

Man: "Oui."

Me: Oh. okay. S'il vous plait, i mean..

Man: "Merci?"

Me: "Merci!!!"

Since then I have been studying my french dictionary (thank you B and A!!) and practicing pronuncing new words (that I don't necessarily know the meanings of) while I'm cooking, or late at night when I'm still too jetlagged to sleep. P is for some reason jetlagged in a totally different way (up way too early in the morning, can't keep his eyes open at night).

Me: "Besoin. bes...oin!"

P: "what?"

Me: "what? nothing, why?"

P: "Do you need something?"

Me: "No, why? what are you talking about?"

P: "go to sleep."

:)

Nous sommes arrivees!

After a long and largely uneventful flight we have arrived in Fontainebleau! Preparing for the move went way too quickly and was way harder than any 14-hour flight with two stops and a layover in Reykjavik could have been. During our last week in Vancouver, we spent days hauling our belongings out of our apartment and into storage at my sisters' (thanks T!), hours packing and crying and packing again. I scrubbed the apartment clean for our tenant. I said my goodbyes. I watched Amelie. And then we were off.

I spent most of the flight reading Jullia Child's My Life in France, dreaming up different ways to fill this year with interesting things and planning exciting day trips with my Lonely Planet France. We landed at noon on January 6th, shuttled to the Gare de Lyon, and took the train to Fontainebleau with our 6 pieces of luggage in tow! BIG mistake. I will forever have the image of P pushing a gigantic luggage cart up to the train station platform burned into my memory! A, our new landlady, picked us up at the train station in a very tiny car and drove us and all of our things to our new apartment. It looked just like the pictures that she sent by emailing that I posted before, and is super cute and cozy. However, the kitchen makes me miss my old apartment desperately. Only a bar fridge and a hot plate! My dreams of learning the art of french cooking may have to be thrown out as I now realize that our meals will be limited to what I can make in a frying pan and a small soup pot. Please send me any good one-pot recipes you know!

We have both been recovering from jetlag slowly, with the help of copious amounts of cappucinos and cheese. Feeling better today, we spent the day sightseeing in Paris!! We walked through the market on rue de Mouffetard, found the Pantheon, discovered the latin quarter and gazed at the Centre Pompidou!