And yes, I will be giving all of my blog posts while in France cheesy titles. Or at least until I think of better titles. Oh, I should also mention that my only Internet access is at the Syracuse University Center, which will affect the frequency of my blog posts (i.e. if I need to spend my time writing a paper, I will be doing that instead).
Yesterday was orientation, with the highlights being an indoor picnic (it's still raining on and off here, and probably will continue like that for the rest of the week), composed of new foods whose names I don't know, and a trip to the Parc de l'Orangerie, a place where the "famous" Strasbourg storks live (I'd never heard of them :-P). I really enjoyed that last part, because birds are some of my favorite animals, and I got to see these magnificent storks, plus other native French birds that I've never seen before. And there were pigeons too, which apparently live everywhere in the world, if I can extrapolate from my experiences in the US, Canada, and France (and I will). At the park, we even went into a bowling alley to get some ice cream (that had actually been the original purpose of the activity, except that the ice cream place we'd planned on visiting was closed, either due to the rain or the holiday, Pentecost).
Last night was my first night with my host family. Considering how it could have gone, it wasn't bad, but it was rather stressful. As it turns out, my host family consists of a divorced mother who lives outside of Strasbourg (unlike most of my fellow students, who live within walking distance of the Syracuse University Center, where we have our classes and whatnot), one of her 20-something sons (who is also a fraternal twin and just came in this morning), and a student with another program who will be there for 3 or 4 weeks. On the walk to my host mother's car when she was picking me up, she began talking to me in English, which was a huge relief; I'm not sure I could have handled a family that only spoke French. During the drive home, she pointed out how I would be able to get back to the Center via a combination of bus and tram, which was very helpful. I spoke back to her in French most of the time (and I've been trying to stick to French, which has limited our conversations), and she complimented me on it. I'm pretty sure she was simply being polite; I know that I've been stumbling and making grammatical errors left and right.
The house I'm living in is big but old. It's quite beautiful, with a large garden behind it (I'll try to take some pictures tonight, and I'll try to post them, along with my others, later this week). Unfortunately, it's also located next to a busy highway. Door knobs are located in the center of doors, which is quite unintuitive for this American, and I find myself instinctively reaching for the left side of a door before I look at it. As I was unpacking, I met the other student, who is from Jacksonville, Florida; I was grateful for the break from talking in French. He's nice enough, and his French is only a little better than mine, which could be because he's already been here a week. Still, at dinner, it felt a little bit like a competition (possibly because I'm somewhat competitive), with each of us trying to talk about our day in what little French we know. It didn't help that I had a hard time recalling what I did yesterday; I normally have that problem, but I'm sure it was exacerbated by my nervousness.
Dinner consisted of a pork roast, spinach salad, yogurt, and "cereal bread", which is a type of multigrain bread. It was all good, especially because I was famished. Afterwards, when the other student and I had run out of things to say, we awkwardly excused ourselves and retreated to our respective rooms. There, I finished my unpacking, made sure that I understood my route for today, and turned on the alarm clock/radio that is next to my bed. The station it was on played a combination of French and American/English music, with the last song I listened to before trying to sleep being "Stairway to Heaven". That wasn't exactly what I expected to hear in France.
Speaking of sleep, that was the worst part of yesterday. For a variety of reasons (without getting into details, I think my digestive system is adjusting to my French diet), I found myself really stressed out and practically unable to sleep. I went to bed at 10 pm and tried to sleep unsuccessfully for 2 hours. At that point, I sat up and took some deep breaths, reassuring myself mentally that I was just dealing with a bit of culture shock and that nothing was actually physically wrong with me, even though my heart was practically pounding out of my chest. After calming my psyche (and after my digestive system had settled down), sleep finally came, I'm guessing at about 1 am.
I slept fairly well, although I think I woke up twice before my alarm went off. Breakfast was more cereal bread, but I had butter and jam this time, which made it more palatable. Milk is different in France; it reminds me of buttermilk, but I don't know if that's what it is or not (don't worry; I'll investigate :-) ). I had some trouble getting out of the house this morning, with the flimsy keychain that my host mother gave me for her keys breaking as I unlocked one of the front door's locks to leave. After searching desperately for one of the keys, which I thought had flown off into a crevice somewhere, I ran into my host brother, who I led over to the door to help me... only to find that, no, the missing key was still in the lock, where I left it. Whoops! After some more fumbling with the locks, I thanked him for his help and quickly left, about as embarrassed as can be. So I suppose I'll be talking about that at dinner tonight. Oh joy.
And I must get going now, because I left a note saying I would be back between 5 and 6 pm, and it's about 5:30 pm now. Considering that my morning commute took a little under an hour (10 minute walk to tram, 10 minutes waiting for tram, slow bus ride), I expect I'll be late, but eh: C'est la vie!
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