In my family, when these words are uttered, it usually means that something didn't exactly go as planned, or something just flat went wrong.We laugh and say these words to remind each other that the sky is not yet falling and we end up usually having more fun anyway. Stressful fun, but fun regardless. That being said my Friday has been an adventure.
First, I must confess that yesterday I was prepared to vent some angry, self-pitying words on here, but restrained. I cried over Skype to my man instead (it took a year of us being friends, plus two years of dating for me to let him see me cry in person). It's still a rare occurrence, but the fact that it happened over the internet should express to you the disarrayed state of my emotions yesterday. School is so stressful. Period.
We began to get some of our grades back this week and then had three more tests. Yesterday was grammar. I feel like I failed. Majority of the grades I have received back are 11, 12, or 13 out of 20. The fluffier classes, like civilization, I have an 18, but I think that is the only good one. All of us GPA-centered Americans are freaking out, obviously, because 11, 12, or 13 out of 20 is miserably failing in the US. I'm not sure what it is here. Our teachers will say they are pretty good, but through our program, we have translated grades, instead of just blank transfer credit. I don't know the scale and...(I could go on forever). Like I said, freaking out. Emailing the professor in charge of the program in Texas didn't really give me anything to go on either. He just said that there is a chart, as determined by my university. We'll see.
In short, that was my rant, so I was ecstatic about getting out of Caen and seeing something new this weekend. I had booked train tickets/hotel reservations in Nantes two weeks ago. The train was supposed to leave two hours after my grammar class ended at 10:30. Ha. Well, my alarm clock sounded this morning and about ripped my sanity in two, so I turned the thing off and went back to sleep. After the week and the test yesterday, I just did NOT have it in me to go to grammar at 8:20 and get gripped at for not doing well on the test or just because I'm a stupid American. We can't conjugate apparently, we're horrible with word order, and we suck at demonstrative and relative pronouns. (This was a generalization made by one of our teachers this week after she handed our papers back to us and mounted her soap box.) In other words, I slept in.
Getting up at 10:30, I figured that I'd have enough time to pack and eat breakfast and put on my face (I also haven't worn make-up for about a week and a half until today, that should also tell you something about my mental state. Breaking. Point.). It was not enough time. It actually was, I was just dilly-dallying, lost track of time, and then remembered that I still had to print my tickets at the train station ticket machine, so after just missing the tram, I uttered a swear and sat with my bags and mapped out my trajectory upon stepping off the tram at the train station.
When I did finally arrive, I had ten minutes to get my tickets and board the train. The ticket machines don't work with foreign cards. I don't know why, because when I printed mine at the Paris airport, I had no problems, but then again, maybe it was because it was the Paris airport. I walked up to the welcome desk, and while waiting in line, I overheard some girls talking to a conductor asking for the voie (the platform) of the Nantes train. He said something about a bus, but I wasn't really paying attention at that point, because it was my turn.
The man directed me to the ticket counter in the next room, so I hustled up to a counter, seeing that the woman could speak English, I was secretly praying that she wouldn't switch over. It's so frustrating when people do that to me. She didn't, she printed my tickets for me and I hustled back to the main room and saw that the train leaving for Le Mans (the Nantes train was by correspondence from there) was an hour late. I was good! God loves me, I didn't miss it, so I bought a magazine and a bottle of water and plopped next to an old lady on a bench out of the way. I nervously looked over my tickets, tried to read some of my book, but just wanted on the train, then I could relax.
Around the time when the train was supposed to arrive, I made my way to the main doors, and the conductor, who had been talking to those girls earlier, asked us to follow him. We left the Gare and headed toward the BusVerts next door. Oh geez. I thought. I'm going to miss my other train. We mounted the bus, everyone commenced pushing and shoving out of frustration through the doors and up the steps. Being one of the first aboard, contrary to who my people in the US perceive me to be (I can be mean and pushy), I chose a window seat. Shoving my back-pack above me and my computer bag below me, I eagerly sat and waited for some type of explanation. The driver asked who had to stop at one of the cities in between Le Mans and Caen, practically everyone but me and a few others raised their hands. It looked like we'd be aboard for a while.
I could feel the stress building and beginning to manifest into a monster in my chest, but after we had exited the congested part of Caen and more green began to pass by, I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that it's always a freakin' adventure (and a blessing in disguise, because I probably would have missed the train with all of my ticket issues). Breathing began to come a little more easily and the tightness in my chest began to loosen, so I just watched the lovely scenic route, but after an hour, I resorted to listening to music. It took a little over three hours and the last hour, I began listening to French talk radio, trying to ready myself for explaining my delay and subsequent missed train caused by the bus-en-lieu-of-train-situation.
Finally arriving in Le Mans, the bus driver dropped us off down the street from the Gare and a sea of red-faced people with heavy backpacks and rolly-bags made its way to the train station. Said train station? Huge! Not as big as Gare du Nord or Gare St. Lazare, but still considerably confusing. I followed the flow of people and saw the word Nantes on a screen, checked th voie and ran for it. When I arrived at said voie, the screen read Strasbourg. Odd. I walked back upstairs and checked the same screen, psh, it was an "arriving" screen. I'm such a genius.
Feeling a little hopeless, I made my way to the welcome desk and told them my situation, so they took my ticket and began stamping and signing away on it. The next train to Nantes would be at 17h06, I should take that one. Sweet. I'm going to make it there before sundown. (That was a growing fear, considering Nantes is much bigger than Caen and I didn't want to be wandering around for my hotel at night.) After having some concrete information, I began to relax a bit and realized I needed a ladies room. A little TMI for you, I know, but just because I have to say that I had to pay to pee. I had to pay 40 centime to use the restroom. Yeah.
Afterwards, I found a spot of concrete that was relatively clean on the outer-most part of the Gare, still in sight of a departure screen and realized that I hadn't eaten anything since a few petits pains grillés this morning, so I dug around in my backpack to find an apple that I'd stashed on my way out the door and greedily consumed it. The train had arrived by the time I was finished, so I made my way there, asking the conductor if it was the right train. His confirmation sent a wave of relief crashing over me and I stowed my bags away again, sat, and listened to music.
The countryside was still gorgeous and as we grew nearer to Nantes, castles, ruins, and Victorian mansions began to fly by. A very different sight from the Normand countryside, but then again the Loire Valley has a HUGE concentration of said buildings. In the words of my host mom, "All of the royals had to have their summer and spring homes there."
Upon arriving in Nantes, I had a similar heaviness in my stomach when I stepped out of the Gare as when I stepped into that street in Paris on my first day in France. Completely confused, I figured my orientation and made my way to to where I thought the tourism office was located. I finally found it after some wandering, but was thoroughly disappointed when I found that it had closed 30 minutes before. The train was supposed to arrive before it closed and I was going to get a map of centre-ville from there and use that to find my hotel, I needed to think and rest my shoulder. Walking, with no real idea as to where my hotel was from there, I took refuge in the sun, sitting on the edge of a sidewalk. My laptop bag was heavy, and I was silently telling myself that unless Muscles is with you or you buy a netbook, you're not allowed to bring a computer again. Probably a lie, but it made me feel better at that moment.
With my legs dangling off the edge of the concrete and resting in the grass below, I pulled out my iPhone and began diddling, trying to figure out how to work it to my advantage. I don't have international data on there, so I was looking at my maps app, trying to see if my hotel street was close, by bumming a few milliseconds of internet from local sources. It was relatively close, but I already knew it was in the vicinity, I just needed a direction. Standing and heaving my bags back over my shoulders, I went back the way I came and circled round to a main street. I wanted to avoid, what I thought was a turn-about, but couldn't. The streets were too curvy and I didn't want to become more lost than I already was.
To my delight, however, the street that I was following opened into a large area surrounded by shops encircling a huge fountain. I'm pretty sure a smile cracked over my face as I marched through the middle and to the rue for which I had been searching. Up, down, up, down. I was looking at the cobblestone ground and changing elevation and then darting my eyes upwards to look for street names. I found my hotel! I know I let out a big smile of relief at that point. Entering, I gave the desk associate my name and he game me a key for the second floor (the third floor in American). That didn't bother me, that meant that the street noise wouldn't be as bad. Entering the room, I tried to flip on the light, but it didn't work. Making a mental note to tell the guy, I let my bags down and flung open the floor to ceiling windows, as it was a bit warm today and all of the running and stressing had produced a lot of sweating.
I stuck my computer bag in the closet, ran downstairs, and back to the Place Royale, as I needed something to eat. I had seen a Paul boulangerie, but when I got close to it, I realized that it was closed already. Wandering a bit more, I just wanted some bread or a sandwich, after a day like that, not to mention eating alone, I was on the hunt for something light. Mounting some steps, I found a Monoprix (French grocery store) and bought a Croque Monsieur. Getting back to the hotel, I began eating it, but realized I should have just gone with a croissant. The bottom half was completely mushy and the thought of the sandwich sitting out since lunch put me off my appetite, so I ran back down the stairs again and back out to the Monoprix and bought some apples, Madeleines, and granola bars to accompany the half-bag of peanuts and rice cakes I had brought with me. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's what I wanted.
When I returned, I tried, again, to turn on my light, no luck. I then tried other lights, and soon came to the conclusion that the power was out in my room, so I grabbed my key and walked back out my door. After locking it, I looked down and saw that there was a picture on the card-looking-thing attached to the key. A little box was illustrated that resembled the little lit box that was above the first light switch. I stuck the card in the slot and THEN THERE WAS LIGHT! The card has to stay in the slot though, or the power is cut again. I know they use this tactic to keep people form using electricity while they are out of the room, (the French are very green) but it should also be used in the US just to keep people from losing their room keys!
One final note on this random weekend traveling I've done for the last few weeks, this whole trip really, has made me feel a certain way, but it's hard to describe. Taking trains and trams, walking and lugging bags around, all while being surrounded by foreign culture and a foreign language gives me a sense of independence and confidence that I've never felt before, like all these experiences are making me tough in some way, like I can figure out any problem. Seriously, while waiting for the bus last weekend at the American Cemetery, the thought crossed my mind that the bus might not come back (as it was only scheduled to come back once that day), so I sat and thought about what I would do. It was in a beautiful area, close to orchards and the softly sloping hills down to the beaches, but out in the middle of the country, so I thought about where I would sleep if that happened. Strange thing is, I was completely ok with the bus leaving my rear there and sleeping under a tree or against a rock. Granted I wouldn't have wanted to sleep outside if it had been cold, I would have thought of something else, but the fact that I feel like I can just make it work is new to me.
The incessant worry-wart that has to have things a particular way is disappearing, to my great relief, and a more calloused version of myself that thinks about building a house that looks like a Hobbit Hole or backpacking across the terrain of New Zealand is being left behind. I probably sound like a complete hippie right now, but maybe I'm morphing into one (sans drugs). All I know is that readjusting to the American way of rat-racing, driving, and consumerism is going to be hard to re-conform to after all this mess.
After fixing a computer problem, I now sit here recounting this crazy day and am so excited about exploring tomorrow! (Not gonna lie, I'm also excited about a double bed and a shower head that is attached to the wall) It's going to be sunny and warm again tomorrow!
First, I must confess that yesterday I was prepared to vent some angry, self-pitying words on here, but restrained. I cried over Skype to my man instead (it took a year of us being friends, plus two years of dating for me to let him see me cry in person). It's still a rare occurrence, but the fact that it happened over the internet should express to you the disarrayed state of my emotions yesterday. School is so stressful. Period.
We began to get some of our grades back this week and then had three more tests. Yesterday was grammar. I feel like I failed. Majority of the grades I have received back are 11, 12, or 13 out of 20. The fluffier classes, like civilization, I have an 18, but I think that is the only good one. All of us GPA-centered Americans are freaking out, obviously, because 11, 12, or 13 out of 20 is miserably failing in the US. I'm not sure what it is here. Our teachers will say they are pretty good, but through our program, we have translated grades, instead of just blank transfer credit. I don't know the scale and...(I could go on forever). Like I said, freaking out. Emailing the professor in charge of the program in Texas didn't really give me anything to go on either. He just said that there is a chart, as determined by my university. We'll see.
In short, that was my rant, so I was ecstatic about getting out of Caen and seeing something new this weekend. I had booked train tickets/hotel reservations in Nantes two weeks ago. The train was supposed to leave two hours after my grammar class ended at 10:30. Ha. Well, my alarm clock sounded this morning and about ripped my sanity in two, so I turned the thing off and went back to sleep. After the week and the test yesterday, I just did NOT have it in me to go to grammar at 8:20 and get gripped at for not doing well on the test or just because I'm a stupid American. We can't conjugate apparently, we're horrible with word order, and we suck at demonstrative and relative pronouns. (This was a generalization made by one of our teachers this week after she handed our papers back to us and mounted her soap box.) In other words, I slept in.
Getting up at 10:30, I figured that I'd have enough time to pack and eat breakfast and put on my face (I also haven't worn make-up for about a week and a half until today, that should also tell you something about my mental state. Breaking. Point.). It was not enough time. It actually was, I was just dilly-dallying, lost track of time, and then remembered that I still had to print my tickets at the train station ticket machine, so after just missing the tram, I uttered a swear and sat with my bags and mapped out my trajectory upon stepping off the tram at the train station.
When I did finally arrive, I had ten minutes to get my tickets and board the train. The ticket machines don't work with foreign cards. I don't know why, because when I printed mine at the Paris airport, I had no problems, but then again, maybe it was because it was the Paris airport. I walked up to the welcome desk, and while waiting in line, I overheard some girls talking to a conductor asking for the voie (the platform) of the Nantes train. He said something about a bus, but I wasn't really paying attention at that point, because it was my turn.
The man directed me to the ticket counter in the next room, so I hustled up to a counter, seeing that the woman could speak English, I was secretly praying that she wouldn't switch over. It's so frustrating when people do that to me. She didn't, she printed my tickets for me and I hustled back to the main room and saw that the train leaving for Le Mans (the Nantes train was by correspondence from there) was an hour late. I was good! God loves me, I didn't miss it, so I bought a magazine and a bottle of water and plopped next to an old lady on a bench out of the way. I nervously looked over my tickets, tried to read some of my book, but just wanted on the train, then I could relax.
Around the time when the train was supposed to arrive, I made my way to the main doors, and the conductor, who had been talking to those girls earlier, asked us to follow him. We left the Gare and headed toward the BusVerts next door. Oh geez. I thought. I'm going to miss my other train. We mounted the bus, everyone commenced pushing and shoving out of frustration through the doors and up the steps. Being one of the first aboard, contrary to who my people in the US perceive me to be (I can be mean and pushy), I chose a window seat. Shoving my back-pack above me and my computer bag below me, I eagerly sat and waited for some type of explanation. The driver asked who had to stop at one of the cities in between Le Mans and Caen, practically everyone but me and a few others raised their hands. It looked like we'd be aboard for a while.
I could feel the stress building and beginning to manifest into a monster in my chest, but after we had exited the congested part of Caen and more green began to pass by, I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that it's always a freakin' adventure (and a blessing in disguise, because I probably would have missed the train with all of my ticket issues). Breathing began to come a little more easily and the tightness in my chest began to loosen, so I just watched the lovely scenic route, but after an hour, I resorted to listening to music. It took a little over three hours and the last hour, I began listening to French talk radio, trying to ready myself for explaining my delay and subsequent missed train caused by the bus-en-lieu-of-train-situation.
Finally arriving in Le Mans, the bus driver dropped us off down the street from the Gare and a sea of red-faced people with heavy backpacks and rolly-bags made its way to the train station. Said train station? Huge! Not as big as Gare du Nord or Gare St. Lazare, but still considerably confusing. I followed the flow of people and saw the word Nantes on a screen, checked th voie and ran for it. When I arrived at said voie, the screen read Strasbourg. Odd. I walked back upstairs and checked the same screen, psh, it was an "arriving" screen. I'm such a genius.
Feeling a little hopeless, I made my way to the welcome desk and told them my situation, so they took my ticket and began stamping and signing away on it. The next train to Nantes would be at 17h06, I should take that one. Sweet. I'm going to make it there before sundown. (That was a growing fear, considering Nantes is much bigger than Caen and I didn't want to be wandering around for my hotel at night.) After having some concrete information, I began to relax a bit and realized I needed a ladies room. A little TMI for you, I know, but just because I have to say that I had to pay to pee. I had to pay 40 centime to use the restroom. Yeah.
Afterwards, I found a spot of concrete that was relatively clean on the outer-most part of the Gare, still in sight of a departure screen and realized that I hadn't eaten anything since a few petits pains grillés this morning, so I dug around in my backpack to find an apple that I'd stashed on my way out the door and greedily consumed it. The train had arrived by the time I was finished, so I made my way there, asking the conductor if it was the right train. His confirmation sent a wave of relief crashing over me and I stowed my bags away again, sat, and listened to music.
The countryside was still gorgeous and as we grew nearer to Nantes, castles, ruins, and Victorian mansions began to fly by. A very different sight from the Normand countryside, but then again the Loire Valley has a HUGE concentration of said buildings. In the words of my host mom, "All of the royals had to have their summer and spring homes there."
Upon arriving in Nantes, I had a similar heaviness in my stomach when I stepped out of the Gare as when I stepped into that street in Paris on my first day in France. Completely confused, I figured my orientation and made my way to to where I thought the tourism office was located. I finally found it after some wandering, but was thoroughly disappointed when I found that it had closed 30 minutes before. The train was supposed to arrive before it closed and I was going to get a map of centre-ville from there and use that to find my hotel, I needed to think and rest my shoulder. Walking, with no real idea as to where my hotel was from there, I took refuge in the sun, sitting on the edge of a sidewalk. My laptop bag was heavy, and I was silently telling myself that unless Muscles is with you or you buy a netbook, you're not allowed to bring a computer again. Probably a lie, but it made me feel better at that moment.
With my legs dangling off the edge of the concrete and resting in the grass below, I pulled out my iPhone and began diddling, trying to figure out how to work it to my advantage. I don't have international data on there, so I was looking at my maps app, trying to see if my hotel street was close, by bumming a few milliseconds of internet from local sources. It was relatively close, but I already knew it was in the vicinity, I just needed a direction. Standing and heaving my bags back over my shoulders, I went back the way I came and circled round to a main street. I wanted to avoid, what I thought was a turn-about, but couldn't. The streets were too curvy and I didn't want to become more lost than I already was.
To my delight, however, the street that I was following opened into a large area surrounded by shops encircling a huge fountain. I'm pretty sure a smile cracked over my face as I marched through the middle and to the rue for which I had been searching. Up, down, up, down. I was looking at the cobblestone ground and changing elevation and then darting my eyes upwards to look for street names. I found my hotel! I know I let out a big smile of relief at that point. Entering, I gave the desk associate my name and he game me a key for the second floor (the third floor in American). That didn't bother me, that meant that the street noise wouldn't be as bad. Entering the room, I tried to flip on the light, but it didn't work. Making a mental note to tell the guy, I let my bags down and flung open the floor to ceiling windows, as it was a bit warm today and all of the running and stressing had produced a lot of sweating.
I stuck my computer bag in the closet, ran downstairs, and back to the Place Royale, as I needed something to eat. I had seen a Paul boulangerie, but when I got close to it, I realized that it was closed already. Wandering a bit more, I just wanted some bread or a sandwich, after a day like that, not to mention eating alone, I was on the hunt for something light. Mounting some steps, I found a Monoprix (French grocery store) and bought a Croque Monsieur. Getting back to the hotel, I began eating it, but realized I should have just gone with a croissant. The bottom half was completely mushy and the thought of the sandwich sitting out since lunch put me off my appetite, so I ran back down the stairs again and back out to the Monoprix and bought some apples, Madeleines, and granola bars to accompany the half-bag of peanuts and rice cakes I had brought with me. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's what I wanted.
When I returned, I tried, again, to turn on my light, no luck. I then tried other lights, and soon came to the conclusion that the power was out in my room, so I grabbed my key and walked back out my door. After locking it, I looked down and saw that there was a picture on the card-looking-thing attached to the key. A little box was illustrated that resembled the little lit box that was above the first light switch. I stuck the card in the slot and THEN THERE WAS LIGHT! The card has to stay in the slot though, or the power is cut again. I know they use this tactic to keep people form using electricity while they are out of the room, (the French are very green) but it should also be used in the US just to keep people from losing their room keys!
One final note on this random weekend traveling I've done for the last few weeks, this whole trip really, has made me feel a certain way, but it's hard to describe. Taking trains and trams, walking and lugging bags around, all while being surrounded by foreign culture and a foreign language gives me a sense of independence and confidence that I've never felt before, like all these experiences are making me tough in some way, like I can figure out any problem. Seriously, while waiting for the bus last weekend at the American Cemetery, the thought crossed my mind that the bus might not come back (as it was only scheduled to come back once that day), so I sat and thought about what I would do. It was in a beautiful area, close to orchards and the softly sloping hills down to the beaches, but out in the middle of the country, so I thought about where I would sleep if that happened. Strange thing is, I was completely ok with the bus leaving my rear there and sleeping under a tree or against a rock. Granted I wouldn't have wanted to sleep outside if it had been cold, I would have thought of something else, but the fact that I feel like I can just make it work is new to me.
The incessant worry-wart that has to have things a particular way is disappearing, to my great relief, and a more calloused version of myself that thinks about building a house that looks like a Hobbit Hole or backpacking across the terrain of New Zealand is being left behind. I probably sound like a complete hippie right now, but maybe I'm morphing into one (sans drugs). All I know is that readjusting to the American way of rat-racing, driving, and consumerism is going to be hard to re-conform to after all this mess.
After fixing a computer problem, I now sit here recounting this crazy day and am so excited about exploring tomorrow! (Not gonna lie, I'm also excited about a double bed and a shower head that is attached to the wall) It's going to be sunny and warm again tomorrow!
I've read this, but forgot to comment. Keep up the posts! I can't wait for the next one and I'll Skype with you tomorrow.
ReplyDelete