You Know You Are in France When...

Students start blockading their schools in protest of rising the retirement age. No, really: kids all over France kept teachers, administrators and other students from entering schools this past week (in addition to transportation strikes), all in protest of raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 years old. Buses weren’t running for three days in Rennes, making getting to school difficult for some students and forcing me to get in an early morning 30-miunte power walk. Compared with other cities such as Paris and Marseille Rennes has a fairly mild interpretation of striking (as seen below by myself).

Sorry about not getting around to the Morbihan and Finistère trip... things happened and I have decided to just start my trip recounting with the current trip so as not to get really far behind.

Moving on to more joyous things than strikes and forgetting to post, we are currently on our second school trip—this time to the Loire Valley. We left Rennes on Sunday morning and stopped first at le Château médiéval d’Angers where we put to use our art history knowledge of “le château-forts médiéval” and the connected vocabulary and history we had been studying in class beforehand.

In the same setting was la Tenture de l’Apocalypse—more than 100 meters of tapestries in 75 scenes that depict the Revelation of Saint John. I can only imagine how many hours those took to complete….

Next we visited L’Hôpital Saint-Jean that also had some very cool tapestries, though from the 20^th century, titled “Le chant du monde” (or “The song of theworld”). The subjects were almost psychedelic with bright and rich colors on black backgrounds. As the name hints, “L’Hôpital” was a medieval hospital originally and has beautiful vaulted ceilings and a gorgeous courtyard.

For our final tour of the day, we went to Château de Brissac where the family de Brissac currently lives. The château is ornate and quite original to it’s building dates of the 16^th to 17^th century. In addition to the family currently living there, the château also operates as a “bed-and-breakfast.”

After that long day of Journée “Tapisseries et Mobilier,” all of SYA was tired and we went to our hotel to rest for the next day: Journée “Curiosités D’Autrefois.”

You Know You Are in France When...

You are walking across a busy intersection where pedestrian right-of-way is not recognized and it’s raining and your umbrella gets blown inside-out by the wind. But at least there’s Nutella waiting for you at home. Seriously though, pedestrian right-of-way is only recognized when European drivers feel like being nice and recognizing it. The green person will be all lit up for you to start walking and then, out of nowhere, a moped or a car comes zooming by and most definitely does not put on the brakes for you. Many a time have I seen a person’s friend pull them back by their sleeve to avoid a catastrophe.

However, after learning that European drivers do not yield—some people from almost first-hand experience—it’s quite easy to remember to look both ways (and then again, and maybe once more for good luck) before crossing the street.

Now onto a slightly different topic: the difficulty of my block schedule. Now, some people might think, block schedules are really easy to deal with…. What’s the problem? And while overall a block schedule is not generally difficult to handle, it is a rather different story when there are limited number of classrooms, a very rigid morning schedule, and an overall shortened schedule on Wednesdays to deal with. That having been said, I think SYA did a wonderful job juggling all these issues. However, problems did arise with certain classes and now it is simply a matter of dealing with them.

To finally aid you in seeing what I mean, I am going to walk you through my weekly class schedule, confusing as it is (no joke there). Since everybody is divided into two language level groups, and then divided in half again, there are 4 groups and you have all five French-based classes with your group (shout out to Group IIA!). So that leaves Math and English (or frees) for interaction with people not in your group. This is going to be a really long post, so bear with me here.

Monday:

Arrive at school at 8 a.m. after taking the bus. 1^st period begins at 8:10, so I get my stuff together for my morning classes.

1. 1^st period French Literature. Super hard class because it’s difficult to argue the themes of regular literature, let alone in a language where you have the vocabulary of a five year old. Just never forget your dictionary. It’s a work in progress you could say. Ahem ahem.

2. 2cd period French History. Currently we are re-reviewing world history, but this time it’s in a different language, so everything appears new until you figure out that one word means cinnamon and that other word means nutmeg, and now everything the teacher was saying about why Columbus sailed the ocean blue suddenly makes perfect sense. Ta-da!

3. 3^rd period Art History. JP (the teacher) is amazing. Enough said. But really, I couldn’t get through the day with out his multitude of American music references. But I could go without his really difficult quizzes over the floor plans of cathedrals. But I do enjoy knowing what I’m looking at when we go to those cathedrals on school trips, and the fact that I don’t know half of the cathedral vocabulary in English. But I know all of it in French. Oh, and his mutual love for Arcade Fire.

4. 4^th period Monday Assembly. Basically we all sit in the common room and listen to announcements, hear about the latest strike and which busses it will be affecting, and who has birthdays that week.

5. LUNCH. Normally an HOUR AND A HALF (!!!) from 11:30 to 1 p.m. I’ll explain shortly why it’s not “ALWAYS” and hour and a half. There are four different options for lunch (all near SYA), which is nice, but sometimes it’s hard to choose what to do. There is a public school where we can eat, which has really good food, but it doesn’t open until 12 p.m., which can be annoying when the French kids try and (successfully) cut you while waiting in line. Then there is a private school that has a nice atmosphere, but the food is bland… so yeah. But, if you are in on the secret, you know that you can eat “downstairs” at the private school where there is a café-style menu and seating that is all REALLY good. Like today for instance; I got a hot Panini, a salad, a cookie, a hot chocolate (it was raining all today, I needed a warm drink), and a bottle of water. All with the swipe of my lunch card. Lovely! And then, the fourth and final option: go to a bakery or pizzeria near school and grab a quick (huge!) French sandwich when you have….

6. Lunch period ENGLISH. Horrible, I know. It really is because when you get used to an hour and a half for lunch, 45 minutes just doesn’t cut it when you have to walk multiple blocks to the closest place to eat lunch at. But whining completely aside, English Literature is quite interesting. We just finished reading Going After Cacciato, a book I found quite intriguing even though I am not one for war-type stories, but, as the book cover says, GAC is not a ‘war’ novel, just like Moby Dick is not another whaling book. Or something to that extent. After many informal Socratic seminar-type discussions (I truly appreciate the practice from last year, Mrs. Williams-Eddy. It’s been enormously helpful!), I found that I really enjoy discussing literature even more than I originally thought.

7. 5^th period French Society and Culture. Basically we’ve been learning how France was originally divided, how it changed and how it is arranged today. We also have been learning more specifically about Bretagne (Brittany; where Rennes is). I think everyone really wants to get to present day events so we can have a better handle on understanding the things are host families discuss, what’s going on with all these strikes (seriously!), etc.

8. 6^th period French Literature. I have double French Lit. on Mondays and Fridays, so that means I don’t have it on any other day during the week.

9. 7^th period Free. Usually used by the majority of people to catch up on English reading, study, or do what is most fun: run to the nearby Carrefour for gummi cacti (don’t ask), candy or cookies or even whole baguettes if that’s your style. But know this: if you want it, Carrefour’s got it.

10. 8^th period French Language. Similar to French class at home with grammar and sentence construction, etc. But of course, the whole class is in French and the teacher does not ‘speak’ English, so don’t even try to speak English in the French-speaking classes, because, usually, the teachers really won’t understand or they will pretend like they don’t understand so you are therefore forced to speak French anyway.

11. 9^th period Honors Pre-calculus. Last period on Monday, which by the end of you are just dying to get home because it is now 5:05 p.m. and you can’t believe you are still in school that late in the afternoon.

And so concludes my Monday: a nasty day where I have 8 classes. Yuck. But now that the long winded description is thankfully over, I will just run through the rest of my schedule and be done with the deed.

Tuesday:

1. 1. Free. Arrive at school at 8:30. Check over homework from Monday night, study for any upcoming quizzes/tests.
2. 2. French Langue
3. 3. French Culture And Society (CESF)
4. 4. Art History
5. 5. Lunch
6. 6. Double French Hist. part 1
7. 7. French Hist. part 2
8. 8. Free
9. 9. Hon. Pre-Cal
10. 10. English. Finish at 5:05. Again.

Wednesday:

1. SHORT DAY!!!
2. 1. Free
3. 2. Free
4. 3. Free. Not kidding. Three frees! Arrive at school at 10:20 (or earlier depending on the amount of studying necessary for quizzes/tests).
5. 4. Art History
6. 5. Lunch/English (half lunch like Monday)
7. 6. Hon Pre-Cal. Done at 1:35 p.m. Wonderful for going to downtown Rennes with friends and getting hot chocolate and crêpes at a crêperie while people watching!

Thursday:

1. Double French Langue. part 1. Arrive at school at 8 a.m., class at 8:10
2. French Langue. part 2
3. Free
4. CESF
5. Lunch
6. Universal Free. Usually consists of advisory meetings, assembly meetings, or the sometimes a “free” period. Ironic, no?
7. Art History
8. Honors Pre-cal
9. English. Out at 4:15. I’m going to be starting rock climbing soon and I will be doing it on Thursdays, but more on that later.

Friday:

1. 1. CESF. Arrive at school at 8 a.m., class at 8:10
2. 2. French Langue.
3. 3. French Lit.
4. 4. French Hist.
5. 5. Lunch
6. 6. Art History
7. 7. French Lit. (again). Out at 2:35. Perfect for getting the weekend started early!

And there is my schedule! I don’t know how I will ever memorize it, but thankfully I have a paper copy to keep until that day which I believe is far off in the distance.

Next up is a recount of the school trip we took to Morbihan and Finistère!

You Know You Are in France When...

You can’t find cupcakes. Anywhere. This can be slightly frustrating when all you want is a really good chocolate and vanilla jumbo cupcake, but I guess a hot Nutella Panini makes up for it... or a Nutella crêpe... or anything else that includes Nutella.

I wonder how many kilograms of Nutella the French consume per year? It’s probably some ridiculously astronomical amount.

But anyway, these past two weeks have been a bit crazy what with orientation, placement tests, and starting classes. I’ll try to recount the most important details.

The first day of orientation took place on the day after we arrived in Rennes—no jetlag excuses to miss school—where we talked about the city in general and what we were to expect. We got the bus and subway map for Rennes along with our KorriGo card that we swipe to go on the bus or metro—which is just another great thing about Rennes. They have a metro!!! I love taking it because it is clean, fast, and super safe. The buses are also very clean but they can get a bit interesting on the narrow cobblestone streets.

After our first weekend with our host families (I went to the beach at St. Malo for a day! See above picture) we had placement tests for math and French classes. Not too interesting. After eating lunch at the public school (we ate at the private school the previous Friday) we had a short meeting and then were let out from school.

During that short meeting we discussed how there was a massive transportation strike planned for the next day all over France. Since most everyone takes the metro or bus to school, it was decided that school should be cancelled for everyone’s convenience! No school because of a strike? Only in France! Most of us met up the next day in Centre Ville to go shopping, see the protest, and hang out with friends. It was difficult to find a bus, but it was well worth the time spent walking to get to know the city better.

The next day we had a scavenger hunt all throughout downtown Rennes which meant asking many store owners for directions (in French, of course!) to monuments and important buildings. It was incredibly fun and tiring at the same time. The above picture is of a beautiful building in downtown Rennes that is hundreds of years old!!

That Thursday and Friday we began classes, but the class schedules had to undergo some changes first.

The next post is for my recount of the first full week of classes… oh the woes of block scheduling.

You Know You Are In France When...

There is the occasional French song mixed in with the multitudes of American pop and rock songs playing everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” and The Who’s “Who Are You” play in the supermarket, on the bus, and on the metro! It is truly fascinating (and a bit scary) to see the way American pop culture influences the world today.

But I’ll let this topic alone for now—on to explaining the endless night (and the better part of a day) of travel. Sound wonderful? Well, actually it wasn’t bad, considering how much time our group spent in different modes of transportation. This is going to be a really long post to get everything in!

Wednesday began for many people in getting up to catch a plane or train, or to drive to Boston. However, since I was on vacation for a few days in said city, I just took a cab to the airport where the SYA departure meeting was being held. I hung out in my mom’s hotel room for a while and then went to the business center to check my email from the States one last time. The business center, as it turned out, was right next to the small ballroom where the SYA meeting was, so I heard all these teenage voices chattering as I was saying goodbye to my friends in Texas.

Now, most people would think, “Okay, that’s not too strange….” Let me say though, that hearing some of the voices of your future classmates, before you see them for the first time, is very weird. The fact that I had only met one of the 67 attending kids was quite scary to think about.

So, experiencing this, and realizing that I needed to get down to that ballroom pronto with my two huge suitcases and my carry-on and my purse (basically a lot of luggage), I went to change and get all my bags. After I checked in with the coordinators, there was a big circle of my classmates to join. Everyone was talking and laughing and trying to figure out who was who from what we remembered of Facebook profile pictures.

We had our meeting and the parents got weepy and sentimental, and some students did too, but—everyone knows how it goes—no one would admit to it now. We walked across the skyway to the airport, checked in, and then went through a ridiculously long security line that took over an hour. Oh, and I got frisked by a woman security guard which is really really not fun even though I know it's for the safety of our country. At all.

But after that little interlude, there was more getting to know one another type conversations. Then we boarded the plane and had a blissfully uneventful flight. We landed at Paris Charles de Gaulle and got our luggage and then took a five hour bus ride to Rennes. Mayhem ensued as we tried to get all of the luggage to the school.

We waited around for while until we all got picked up by our host families and went to our new homes to sleep until the next morning for orientation.

And so concludes the 1^st “day” at SYA France

You know you are excited about going to France when...

there's only 32 days left until you leave. Kind of crazy, right? I truly can not believe that I have only a little more than a month left before I literally run to get on a plane and leave the occasionally oppressive heat of Texas for the rainy land of Rennes, France.
And yes, you did read that correctly. There are other cities in France besides Paris. Although many would be shocked to learn this, the truth will out! "Sarah Sejours en France" is here precisely for that reason--to give an "outsider's" inside point of view on the French way of life.
I am experiencing France through a high school "home stay" program called School Year Abroad (hereafter referred to as SYA), along with an extremely (you can say that again) generous scholarship through my school in Texas.
Though it might sound completely and entirely outrageous to spend junior year of high school away from family and friends, it's the knowledge that I will have two sets of everything (families, friends, languages, etc) at the end of nine months that makes all the sacrifices more than worth their weight in gold.