Comments...

So I really didn't understand the whole comment concept when I first started this blog but I now understand. Please comment if you want, now that I understand. It may make the blog more lively so it isn't just a boring monologue that is Sarah. Dad, even political commentary is welcome.

Budweiser!!!!

It’s really quite amazing that I have yet to post this week and I have nothing to do. One can only read so many articles about reservoirs. This past weekend I actually did things so that was cool and a bit different. Because of the nation-wide train strike the Frenchies actually stayed here on Friday night!!! So I went to a beer bar with some people from the department, where we drank Belgian beer and ate local cheese and meat. So wonderfully French!!! They only had European beer and this precipitated an argument about the superiority of European and American beer. I was told that American beer is Bud, which admittedly does suck, but everyone knows that our microbreweries are what set us apart. Fortunately, one of the people in the department is heading to GSA in Denver this week so I’m helping prepare his presentation and I prepared a list of good beers that he must try so he can return and back me up. I was shocked when I learned that they thought we had horrible beer, the French may be able to do wine but we can do beer!!! Saturday I did a little shopping with my American friend, Anna and my Italian friend, Tiziana. And Sunday, I went running with other people!!! It was a pretty crazy weekend for me.

So yah, I did that on Friday and on Saturday I actually went shopping with other people and ate crepes!!! The first time since I’ve arrived!!! I’m a terrible visitor here but usually I eat at my house because I’m cheap. This does mean that I’ve saved money for traveling which I intend to start doing as soon as I can leave the country. At the moment, I can’t. Yes, due to administrative goof-ups I could not actually leave the country and re-enter so I will be stuck here for another month or so. I really can’t even get into it because it is so upsetting but it seems I’ve been screwed, even more, than most by the French bureaucracy.

My mom is coming this weekend so I’ll remain here then but after that I need to learn to break-free. It will be so nice to see her and Heidi. I’ve spent most of this week socializing a bit, hanging out with Frenchies, visiting Café Polyglot which takes place at a bar and is a place where you can speak most foreign languages with others (It’s pretty cool) and preparing for her visit. At Café Polyglot I met a French doctor who invited my friends and I to a birthday party this weekend and when I mentioned my mom and her friend he very excitedly invited her too (they really love English speakers here!) Make my apartment a little more inhabitable before it turns into a dormitory, as it is just big enough to inflate an air mattress in my kitchen/living room.

This week I also have made a huge coup, in my opinion, I now have a phone in my house!!!! And the piece de resistance, a neufbox!!! For those of you who are not familiar it is a box with internet (weefee), tv, an adsl phone and something else, don’t understand exactly. So, I now have the neuf box and have no clue how to use it. Luckily, I was giving the WEP code of a neighbor so I have internet access but I’m currently trying to work out the puzzle that is my neufbox and all of the letters I receive from neuf telecom with lots of information that I’m sure would be useful if I understood it all. This stuff is complicated enough in English, but in French it is like I’m reading Urdu. So that will be a work in progress or a “travaux en cours”, a term I use often in French.

So yah, I’m having an interesting week. In search of volunteer work here, which is way harder to find than one would think but I’m persevering and I believe I will find something. I also think I may try to learn Arabic because then I could do a lot more in life depending on what I want to do but I’m learning French and share an office with a Moroccan (we have the international office) plus there are tons of Arabic speakers here so I figure why not? I also have access to the language center’s resources so I’m going to try. It’s also similar to Hebrew so if I can manage to remember some of that then I’m all good. I’ve also been told that I have the good accent (I think due to my Hebrew training and my ability to say the “ch” sound) so that is how I’m preparing for my future.

Ok. So this post is really long and I'll try to post more regularly again.

Good night and good luck.

A little late...

So I thought I would post this video which is a bit late. I took some videos of my sortie (trip) with the Club Alpin Francais, which is pretty cool. Most of the people are old but it is a good way to meet other people and get out of the city, especially when the weekend is pretty boring. They also have lots of cool places in the Alps so I definitely plan on taking advantage of that soon. Can't wait to try the skiing there. But, that's a tangent...

This is a video from my hike in Gevrey-Chambertin, which is really wine country so we were hiking among beautiful limestone and the vinyards. We got to eat grapes and hike!!! It was great. I was definitely the talk of the group as I was below 50 years old (no there were two 30 year-olds) and because I was one of the rare foreigners. I was told by about everyone that it was a shame I came on this day because it was so cloudy and you couldn't really see a whole lot, but what can you do?




So this is my hike!!!

La Greve!!!

That means strike in France and that is what the trains are currently doing. Yesterday, that is Thursday, so were many energy employees as well as, It came at the perfect time. Just as the Rugby World Cup is culminating in its 2 final matches, Sarkozy announced his divorce and the first weekend I was going to leave Dijon in a month. Yes, the French know how to pick 'em. The strike of Thursday has been called off my half of the rail workers but less than 1/3 of all French trains are running. However, it may resume next Monday, depending on how negotiations go. So, it's also just in time for my mom and Heidi to visit.

Most of you are probably saying that the French are famous for their strikes or thinking why the hell did Sarah decide to go there (dad), but it really is a fascinating part of their culture. They strike often and usually they get what they want. It's quite incredible. In case any of you don't know what the strike is about, it is over their pension plans. Half of France still has the right to retire at 50 with full benefits, while the other half, is struggling to get to work and must work an extra few years to retire with a full pension. This is known as Sarkozy's first test and frankly, I hope that he wins because well I believe that everyone should have a right to a long and healthy retirement, it is sometimes necessary to compromise a little bit. Plus, the conservativeness of Dijon is getting to me a little bit and I think they need accept that the world is changing and with that France must change, just a little.

So yah, I'm getting a little antsy here in Dijon. It is quite a closed conservative city and while its beauty and other charms and can make up for part of that, it is still difficult to be here all of the time. It is so French (and with the strike) even more so that

Rugby World Cup 2007- England vs France

This is me at the Rugby match and there is a slightly nice/but a little too nice French guy standing behind me. So for those who do not know. France lost. It was a sad night for France and lots of dissapointment was in the air. Quite different from the energy everyone felt last week. I ended up rooting for the English a bit just to be contrary to all of the French. I didn't know who would win. I also did it in part because this one guy who I've seen around a bunch was really annoying me and hitting on me and I just was trying to be difficult, you know how it is. Still, I could feel the sadness in the air. I tried to take good videos but they suck so I'll post the best one.Now, France is in the running for 3rd place...so we'll see. Hopefully, they'll be come magic left in the air and people will be excited, drink and enjoy the match. I know I will. Of course (mom), I did not drink a lot at this game because I went on a hike at 7 am the next morning but I enjoyed it never the less. And since I was with nice English boys we had to make an escape early, so that worked out well for me.






It was a good Saturday night after spending the beautiful Saturday wandering around Dijon, trying to make my apartment look more like home, running, and I actually met someone for coffee. A student who loves America!!! That's right and she took a class there and wanted to talk so I got to meet someone on Market day. I'm almost becoming social. I added this photo thing as well as paper lampshades for my overhead lights. It is definitely beginning to look a bit more classy. I'm also posting a video of the market so you can see what it was like. I have to go teach a class so I'll add more later.


Good night and good luck.

Santé

As you can see, my number of posts has increased exponentially since I've acquired internet in my office at the University. I'm currently "doing some work" and listening to BBC radio on my computer just to get a better idea of what's going on in the world. Since I'm not in Paris, the news one hears on the radio here is quite focused on Burgundy. I'm not actually in rural France but sometimes it feels like it.

So this week I have progressed in terms of my quest for friends. On Monday, I hung out with people after work, Tuesday I hung out with a Dutch tourist who was looking for someone to hang out with. I also had an English conversation lesson with a French doctor who has done Doctors without Borders and I love talking to him. He is so cool. I really want to help people like that to make myself happy. As a tangent, I was hoping that this year would make me realize what I want to do for my life, instead I think I'm becoming more and more confused.

Anyways, back to friends...I am becoming a little bit closer with the doctoral students here. I had aperatifs at the apartment of the one girl with a bunch of them on Wednesday and that was really good. They remind me a little more of home. She has a really nice apartment too and it really makes me want to make my apartment feel even more like home. Don't quite know how to do that super cheaply but I think it will require another trip to IKEA and Carrefour (their version of Walmart). I learned that you can find things like hummus, black beans and lots of other stuff there. I already ventured there last weekend to buy peanut butter, so Carrefour is a little more high class than Walmart. So as you can see I have not changed and have completely veared off from my topic again. Last night, I went to dinner at a girls dorm/residence on campus. Well, she is actually an american women who is doing research here and we met when we both saw traces of Americanism at the prefecture. She had a few other internationals over for American food (beans and rice) and it was mostly girls so it was nice to hang out with girls. And they've been debating over whether to buy Sex and the City DVD's or not and I have solved their problem as I have all of them.

So things are slowly coming together. I helped teach 2nd year masters students in an English workshop all day Wednesday and Thursday and it was quite exhausting, especially because many of them were not interested in learning at all or in ever leaving France. I've been a little shocked by some of the anti-american sentiments at the University here but I've also met tons of others so maybe I'm just being weird.

It is Friday and that means the weekend which means that I'll be alone for most of it but I'll also get some rest and it also means rugby this weekend!!! It's England vs France so quite a fierce match. It should be exciting!!!! So that's pretty much all, I think. I'll try to keep posting more frequently if I can. Also, more videos, pictures, etc. There is more on my snapfish page so enjoy.

Good night and good luck.

Another video....

I love this. This is of my apartment, as you will see.

Added more photos

Just a quick post. Added more photos to my snapfish France photo album but am adding videos to this, or trying to.

A week in the merde!!

So I just returned from watching that movie about Daniel Pearl and it was so good; quite inspiring!!! I don't know if it's out in the US or not because this version was in French but I'm pretty sure it was in theaters. I had quite an interesting week and by interesting I mean it was full of ups and downs due to the fact that school started and I think I've been away long enough for the novelty to have worn off and now I'm just homesick.

School here turned out to be quite a shock for me. It is so different from home and I'm not exactly loving the system. Because of the fact that I don't have masters I'm registered as a first year masters student which means I'm with a bunch of archeologists with whom I don't have much in common and you can't actually find classes in other masters because there not listed any where. Everything here is very strict. Like professors don't socialize/eat lunch/do anything with doctoral students, masters students are treated like high schoolers and I'm kind of just swimming in the middle of the system. I have a desk with doctoral students (pretty cool, although the internet at my desk does not work yet) but I'm not a doctoral student. And all of the professors are 9-5ers and they actually want to fire one guy, who is Brazilian but did his pHd and post-docs in the US because he works too much!!! He's a real character.

However, the good news that after my 6 week crusade to register I succeeded and was able to obtain the final piece of necessary information for my carte de sejour so I should be having my medical exam pretty shortly and that will be lots of fun. It also means I'll have internet!!!!! Also, at school people aren't quite as friendly as we are at home. We are pretty awesome actually. But, I'm managing to slowly make friends. It is really hard though. I think I thought it would be easier after school started and that magically I would just have friends. So that was a little disappointing but can you do? I'm definitely learning a whole lot about the culture from it though.

So last night was the big France vs New Zealand Rugby World Cup match. The Rugby World Cup is in France this year and it is huge. I went to my bar, the Irish Pub that is owned by Frenchies but is really close to my house and they know me there. I ran into two younger English students who are here on an exchange in the store yesterday and invited them too so they got to mix and mingle with my bar friends who are mostly older, non-creepy men. But the bar was packed and the game was great. France pulled through for the win in the last few minutes and it was crazy all night. Every car beeped when they passed and it was just great. It was a little like when the Steelers were winning in 2005-2006. It was funny too because one of the English kids is randomly a huge Steelers fan so when I said I went to school there he got so excited. So that was fun. Well, I think I'm going to go eat but just wanted to give a little update. Hope all is well at home and email me!!!!

Good night and good luck,
(I need to think of a good sign off)