Soleil

Today was very nice and relaxing. I woke up around 1 again and went with Eliza and Christina for a pique-nique au bois de Vincennes. It’s a very pretty very big park with a castle. Like, a real castle, Chateau de Vincennes. We lazed about for a while just enjoying the sun, since it will be disappearing very soon. It was relaxing to just be a bum for once. And my legs were very happy for a break from walking. The castle was really cool, and my mind didn’t know how to comprehend a castle right next to a city. I kept thinking I would look over the wall and see the ocean.

Then we came back to the foyer, and watched Toy Story with Sophia. Went down to the Salle commun and played a very intense game of Egyptian Ratscrew. I learned that there might be a french version of Egyptian Ratscrew, which just proves to me that card games transcend boundaries and are played throughout the world. Advice to anyone who’s studying abroad, bring cards. It’s honestly how I’ve met and interacted with a lot of people.

So, today wasn’t filled with tons of exciting crazy new things, but I needed the break and it really makes me happy to feel this comfortable here. Now I just need to find my own niche and friend group and life will be parfait!

Egyptian Rat Screw, written august 27th

8/27/2010 12:15 AM

Lesson learned from today, well yesterday; never assume the day is done. I was all ready for bed, in my pjs and all, when Eliza came upstairs to see if I wanted some food. We got talking and decided to go downstairs and play cards. There we got talking to another IFEer, Pengpeng, and then met a group of guys who had just finished dinner and offered us some tea. We got talking and drinking tea and laughing over cultural differences, and before we knew it, it was midnight and the guard was telling us to be quiet.

It definitely helped my French, speaking and listening. I have a big problem with understanding different accents, but tonight I was able to pretty much understand French with a hint of Moroccan, Chinese, and well just plain French accents. It definitely helped that they were all guys because for some reason my ears don’t like to understand the deeper voices that most guys have, in any language. So, this definitely helped.

In the end it was just plain fun. It’s nice to be able to just talk to somebody and laugh and not have to worry if you’re using the correct verb tense.

Hopefully I’ll see the group again, but it seems like no matter who you talk to in the foyer, everyone is nice. It’s really cool to finally find a group of people who obviously like languages and French, since they’re here. In the US, a lot of people think it’s annoying to learn another language, and a lot more people think some aspect of French, the people or the language, is stupid. So, it’s refreshing to not have to worry about people disliking my passion.

I really need to sleep, but if I can’t stay awake in class tomorrow, it was definitely worth it J