Group 3 CC?

I got my official placement in my french class today.  Level three has three groups...A, B and CC.  CC, not C. Why?  I am in level 3 CC.  Is CC a french code for something like "troublemakers"?

I met my teacher today.  She's wonderful!

Most of my class is comprised of college-age American girls.  But, most of them didn't understand the teacher and left about half way through the class (long story...but I have to giggle a bit).  The four of us that were left (a Brazilian girl, a Korean girl, another American girl, and me...the grandma of the group) got a tour of the classrooms, the correct schedule and actually know where to go tomorrow.  Some of our classes will be in the university building where the economics school is, which is located a couple of buildings down the street from where the main school is (if you're interested...it's at 11 Cours Gambetta, yes, in the same building as the Avis car rental office).

When I signed up for this school, it was located in the old part of the city in a beautiful old building.  I have to admit I'm just a wee bit disappointed that it's moved to a new building in a different part of town...kind of lost the charm of the old site.  But, the facilities are probably nicer, since they're more modern.

Josie made it through her second day and had the rest of her classes today including math.  The math class here doesn't follow the same curriculum as her class in the US, so we're doing some math tutoring tonight, but she'll be fine.  I need to review my calculus!  Tonight, she walked straight home from the bus and was home just before 6pm.  That's a long day!

I met my friend Caroline for a drink this evening and smell like I smoked a pack of cigarettes because the people that sat right next to us were chain smoking...that's something I'm going to have a hard time getting used to here.  People smoke a lot.

Caroline introduced me to a new drink...Kir.  It's white wine with elderberry liqueur.  Tasty!

Signing off from group 3CC!

Josie's first day of school...

Josie survived her first day of school and even had a good day despite a bit of a bumpy start...
We missed the 7:20 am bus by seconds...the bus was parked in a different place than the last time we took it, and we stood around (like gaping tourists wondering where it was) for a few minutes before I found it... just as it pulled away. Josie was feeling a bit stressed and the next bus would make us late, so we took a taxi. Ack! 15 euros later, we arrived at IBS very early, but it was all good. And, the result is that Josie decided that the school bus is the way to go, and I concur!

Josie's school is the International Bilingual School of Provence (IBS...http://www.ibsofprovence.com/) and is just outside of a small village south of Aix called Luynes (pronounced...loo-ee-n).  Josie is in year "premiere", which  is the year before the year you graduate.  The numbers in high school go backwards from our numbering in the US, and the last year is called "terminale".  She's continuing in the IB Diploma programme (that's why we chose this school), and there are about 60 kids in her class.  About 40 are boarding students.  And, all but two (Josie and Lindsey from Alaska) are from outside the US.  Josie said that she hears many different languages being spoken and that it's kind of crazy!  Her classes are all in english (except french of course), and many of her professeurs are British (one german, one australian).

There was another new student starting today at IBS...a young boy from Colorado! His parents (Ruth and George) and I had a great time talking and sharing experiences. They are high school teachers from Golden, CO taking a sabbatical and travelling around the world with their 12-year old son for a year!  They have landed in Aix kind of accidentally (their volunteer plans in Tanzania didn't work out) and don't have a place to live yet.  Bravely, they have rented a car and kindly offered to give me a ride to the giant-super store Carrefour, where I was headed to attempt to purchase a lamp or two for our dim apartment.  The drivers here are crazy.  Truly.  You have to be extremely aggressive to get anywhere in the traffic.

No luck with the lamp at Carrefour (I bought some super cheap battery-powered lights that didn't work and a really cheap flourescent shop light thingy that does work, but doesn't look so great), but I had a great time using my new french dictionary on my ipod to translate hair conditioner bottles! :-) LOL!  Fun in France! I really like how the new products I bought today smell! (I'm not usually into that kind of thing, but I just washed my hair and it smells so good!).

I learned today, from my iPod french dictionary, that Marseille has been famous for soap-making since the 1300s...hence the brand name soap Marseillais, and the scent Marseille on our laundry soap.  And, that you can buy a large block of "savon de marseille"...which I then found in the laundry aisle!!  But, what does one do with a 5-inch square block of soap?  Well...thanks to google, I now know that this soap is made from olive oil and is known for being very gentle to one's skin (here's a link  if you're interested...http://savondemarseille.com/).

I met Josie at the school bus this afternoon...I knew I was in the right place because I was confronted by a pack of teenagers, smoking cigarettes and speaking english.  Josie was not smoking, but was right behind them with a couple of other girls.  She was famished because the school lunch today was in honor of the chinese new year, and did not have an obvious vegetarian option.  So, we stopped at her now favorite Crepe a Go-Go so she could get her favorite Nutella crepe, then headed out to buy more school supplies.   yay!  That meant we got to go to Papeterie Michel...my now favorite store where I have been spending too much money.  I love french stationary stores!


Josie said school was great, busy, long, and not as hard as she expected. She's ahead in biology and geography, and she said art is going to be her hardest class.  Her art teacher has very high expectations....thus another $100 of supplies!  But, what better place to explore art more deeply than in Cezanne's hometown??  

Studying in our dim apartment.

Recensement...the French census!

We arrived just in time for the french census in our region! The census-taker wasn't sure what to do with us and had to come back with her supervisor to determine if we needed to fill out the forms. I guess since we'll be here six months, they decided that we do need to fill them out. Of course, they are all in french, so she left me her phone number so I could call her with questions. But,thanks to google translate was enough and I think I'm done! She'll be back tomorrow night to pick them up.

The really funny thing is that the light at the top of the our building's stairs is out so it is pitch dark at the entrance to our apartment. We have gotten accustomed to either carrying a headlamp or using our cell phone to illuminate our way. But the poor census worker wasn't as prepared and we scared the pants off of both of us one night in the dark!

Here are our forms...yes, it took a glass of wine and the laptop to complete them!

French movie theaters and un verre de vin rose

We tried to see a movie tonight, but it sold out. At the cinema here....when you go to buy your ticket, you have to get in line for the specific room or salle that your movie is playing in. Then there is an electronic sign above the queue that states how many spaces are still available. Next time, we will try to reserve our seats on line...I think we can do that. But we still don't even know how much the tickets cost.

We did figure out that when the cinema advertisement says VO is means the movie is in the original language, and when it says VF that means the movie is in french. I don't think I'm ready for an entire movie in french...well, at least I'm not ready to actually understand it. I'll be thrilled if I can watch a movie in french by the time we leave and at least get the gist of what's happening.

So, instead of seeing a movie we went to Cafe Verdun, which is just a short block from our apartment, and had a glass of wine. Josie had her first (tres petite) glass of wine out...a wee tiny glass of a local provencal rose. She will be seventeen in a month! wow. I love that you can have this tiny (10cl) glass of wine for only two euro and it's delicious and relaxed. The only bummer is that when you sit outside, most other people are smoking. Ack.

Our funny faux pas of the evening (there is at least one per day!)...when we arrived at the cafe, we didn't know if we could just sit down or if we had to ask to be seated. So I decided to err on the safe side and ask to be seated, so we went inside and asked (in french) for a table for two outside. He pointed to one (which was occupied by the two young women next to it's purses) and we eventually evacuated the purses and sat down. Shortly after we sat down, two dinner menus arrive and then a woman showed up with this giant piece of wood that she plunked down onto the table that turned the table from a round little cocktail table into a larger square wooden table!! Of course we felt quite conspicuous being the only people on the patio with a giant slab of wood in front of us. I realized quickly that they thought we wanted dinner and told the woman that we only wanted drinks (in french). She looked surprised and dashed off to talk to the waiter. He then came over to us and explained (in english!) that when you come inside and ask for a table it means you want dinner. Oh well...we are learning! I explained that we are new in town...I'm sure he rolled his eyes inside and he took away our giant slab of wood and we ordered our wine (in french) and all was well.

Slice of life in Aix...

Spending a lot of time just wandering around Aix this week. Learning our way through the maze of tiny streets...here is a typical Aixois street near the art school.

Today is another market Saturday....nearly everyday is a market day in Aix! We discovered another market today that also has seafood, and we found the flower market as well. And, today we also adventured beyond just purchasing produce and bought fresh pasta, cheese and chocolate...and paid dearly for it! All delicious and all very expensive! Pointing, nodding, smiling and tasting was great fun, and my french is still pretty terrible and the result was paying about 10 euros for the cheese, 9 for the pasta and 5 for the chocolate! wow! As my french improves, so will my shopping!

if you look closely, you'll see our tres chere pasta, cheese and chocolate...as well as chicory, mache, lychees (mamonchinos!!), some other greens that I think might be dandelion, cauliflower, artichokes, tomatoes, clementines, ginger, garlic, lemon, red pepper, carrots, leeks zucchini, and green leafies. We are going to eat well this week!

Heading back into our apartment we are greeted by this spectacular marble ball at the bottom of the main staircase. It's a bit out of place, but makes us both smile...

rue Marius Reinaud...our street. Our apartment entrance is just before the green awning on the left. I can't afford to buy a single sock on sale at the store with the green awning!

Our apartment is on the 5th floor american styles, or le 4me etage en France...in the attic of our 18th century building.

One of Josie's favorite things about our apartment is the electric key that opens the main gate and the main door. You hold a little black key fob thingy up to an electronic key pad and the gate buzzes and opens, then you do the same thing inside to open the door. Very exciting!

How old is Josie??

I had my french placement exam today. I haven't studied and really wasn't too fussed about doing well, because it's just a placement exam. But, it's really hard to not get just a we bit hyped and stressed about taking a 24 page written exam, plus an oral exam!

The morning session was the written portion which included four pages of listening and comprehension (which I completely failed...I didn't understand any of the conversations! really.) as well as about 20 pages of other written testing (did much better on this portion except for the more advanced verb conjugations).

The afternoon session was an oral exam with a teacher. I did okay telling the examiner about myself and about Josie....well...except...I said that Josie was 60 years old instead of 16. The examiner said "soixante"??? Your daughter is "soixante"??? I said "oooh, oui"...yes, of course. She asked again..."soixante"??? She is "soixante"??? I laughed and smiled thinking she was complimenting me...saying like you're too young to have such a grown daughter. Finally, she turned her notebook around and said "Gigi...soixante"...and wrote....6....0... "OH!" I said "seize! she's 16!! 16!!". We both got a great laugh out of it.

My french school is called the Institut d'Etudes Fracaises pour l'Etudiants Etranger (IEFEE - http://www.iefee.univ-cezanne.fr/) and is now located on the Boulevard Gambetta in the same building as the Avis rental car place...not really so lovely as its old location. To get there, I have a ~10 minute walk from our apartment through the Passage a Gard, down to the end of the Cours Mirabeau and up the rue d'Italie.

Today, Josie and I met for lunch and had pizza from Pizza Capri in the Place Richelme where we discovered yet another farmer's market! And, we learned tonight that there is a flower market in that square on Saturdays!!

Then, we went to the english bookstore where we had tea and explored the selection of books in english. It's a lovely bookstore and has a 2nd-hand section upstairs. I'm sure it will become a refuge when we need a bit of english in our busy french lives. Also, we learned that they can order anything we need and they have great tea too!

Speaking of tea we found two more tea stores and bought some delicious sleepytime-ish herbal tea....in addition to our staple black and green teas. I am really enjoying living in an urban area where all of this delicious food and drink is so easily accessible!!! Did I mention how good the olive oil is!?!

Josie got a tour around Aix with some teenage girls this evenings...crepes and the english bookstore again. Then one of her friends came over for dinner.

Another fun and full day in France!!

Buses, shopping carts and school supplies

Another exciting day in Provence !

I still cannot text with my mobile phone despite the fact that supposedly my contract has unlimited texting. Today, Orange (the mobile phone company) convinced me to pay more money because supposedly I couldn't text because for this first partial month (Jan16-27) I do NOT actually have unlimited text like they told me and I had used up the miniscule amount of credit I had with my long phone conversation with my bank. But...alas...after paying more money, I still can't text. I will go back again tomorrow. (They really don't know what the problem is.)

We successfully navigated the bus system and got off at the proper stop and had a nice walk to IBS (Josie's school), where we met with Mr. Trevor Tricker, the IB Diploma Director. Josie will start school on Monday. IBS is a very busy little school with high energy, and yet a very relaxed sort of atmosphere. I know that sounds like a dichotomy, but it fits. Josie got her schedule for Monday and we got a tour of the school. Interesting...most of the classrooms are in modular pod-like buildings because they are still waiting for their building permit to start building the new classroom building...it was explained to us that this is typical for "the south". Anyone read Peter Mayle's books??

After visiting the school, we successfully made it to Carrefour the giant massive super-sized Walmart type store (wow!!). Did I mention that it was huge? Seriously...a store that puts Super-Walmart to shame.

and best of all...they have shopping cart escalators...

We went to Carrefour to purchase Josie's school supplies...a massive pile of notebooks, paper, etc.. You would have really been entertained watching us with the French school supply list trying to figure out what the heck the difference is between double and single paper (still don't quite get that one...but they require that she have some of both???) and the sizes (A1,2,3,4) and lg vs. sm squares. Pretty hilarious. I think it took us about two hours (okay...maybe not quite) of hanging out in the papiterie aisle of Carrefour and we still didn't get everything. Home again on the bus...what an adventure!

Next time maybe we will try one of the self-scanners that you carry with you and scan all your purchases yourself as you go!