Penn-Lyon Orientation Day Two

This post was for August 31, 2013

From Orientation Day One

I slept in later today because 1. I stayed up later and 2. I thought I would have plenty of time to get ready. False. My easy morning turned into a rushing out the door. On my way to the second day of orientation as I was heading down quai Claude Bernard, some lady asked me for directions. The best answer I could come up with was "I don't live here." Awk. The other weird thing that happened was I was still wlaking down the street with the school in sight, when I saw two gardeners loading something in a truck. I said "Bonjour" and they responded with the equivalent of "Helllllooooo~!" So naturally, I was internally freaking out. I got to the classroom and told the other Penn students what happened and Meg said "Yeah the French don't smile or say hi on the street. They think it's really weird and creepy" (That was paraphrased). I was just trying to be polite! It's really hard to resist the urge to smile and say hi. It's so instinctual.

At 11 AM, we went to the library for a tour. It's new so it's super high tech. The check out machine for books is crazy (see below)! You just stick the book in, it sees the cover, you swipe your card, and then you're done. It's a lot prettier than Van Pelt but significantly smaller. And yes it has cool technology but you have to use machines (that don't take credit cards without the chips or puces in them) to put money on your student card to print and what not.

View from the fifth floor

For lunch, we stopped at a really cute café of which I completely forget the name. I had a jambon-fromage sandwich.

Ham, butter, and camembert

During lunch, David got a text saying "Bonjour!" from an unknown number. He texted back saying he didn't have the number, who is this. The number responded "Maman" which is the French version of Mom or Mommy. It was not his real mother nor his host mother, and he responded as such. She replies by calling him. Hence the confused face from David.

He stayed on the phone with a woman insisting his number belonged to her son. It did not turn out well for David or that woman, but it was thoroughly amusing to Nicole, Kelsey, and I.

Class after lunch is always so hard. You have a food baby and it's hot and all you want to do is go to sleep...and that's what I did. Sorry Barbara! I passed out sleeping for like 10 minutes with my head on the table. Whoops, #sorrynotsorry.

Outside of Building K at Bron

Today we took the tram to the Bron campus, which is a 30-45 minute ride away. With my luck, I will probably have all of my classes there despite how I'm only 15 minutes from the Bergès de Rhône. It is a pretty big campus, but it is so far away from everything else. All the buildings look super industrial, but not in a good way. The inside looks like what high schools are supposed to look like or something from Grand Theft Auto or Tony Hawk.

Alpes!

Mountains!

Bron is really far away. We had to take the tram there and back.

I came back home and took a nap because reasons. I went to a little convenient store/market thing to do shopping on my own in French for the first time! major struggles with the credit card machine. Also, I had to pay 15 cents for my plastic bag.

Art and Olga ade dinner. Olga made a Russian salad for the starter. It was called an Olivier salad, but Russian restaurants that serve to tourists call it Moscow salad. It had cucumber, egg, and ham and was held together by mayo. Art made an Armenian dish with egg and green beans. Both were really good. I supplied dessert: Oreos (Thanks Erica!). What was the most memorable was that I had a wine that I really liked! Looking a the bottle, I can't tell what it is called but it's a red wine. I have tried a bunch of whites but without any appeal. This was the first time I drank a wine and Actually wanted to finish it!

Rabiâa (my host mom), Art, Me, and Olga

Best wishes!