First days as a Dijonnaise

Well, I'm finally in Dijon! So much has happened since I last wrote, and I'm not sure how much time I have to write, but I have been very busy and have lots to tell.

So, Monday, after a nice day in Troyes touring and eating lunch, we drove to Dijon and met our host families. We met them in the middle of the city. My host brother, Leo, and host mother, Sylvie (I call her Madame), were there to meet me. We got my bags in the car and Leo drove us to the house. My house is right down the street from the train station and a short 10-minute walk to the main square, Place Darcy (très commode). The house is set back from the street and is the last house in a row of houses off of a long driveway. It's very hard to explain and I don't think I've ever seen anything like it in the states. Anyway, we came to the house, I met my host father, unpacked my things and was then invited to have an aperitif with my family before dinner. The aperitif was a "Kir," a specialty in Dijon. Dinner started with a pumkpin soup, followed by Beouf Bourguignon (something my mom makes pretty often). The desert was a cake, similar to pound cake, with pieces of apple in it. The food was very good, the conversation was a little stilted (but that was expected). So far I haven't made any super embarrassing mistakes, but it is safe to say that my French has room to improve (though I can already feel a difference!).

After dinner I went to bed (they eat late here), but had a rough night wheezing and coughing throughout the night. It appears that I am very allergic to their cat. It's kind of a big problem, but we're working on it. The following morning I alerted the family of the issue, as well as the director of my program, and now I have Zyrtec and things seem to be improving. Part of the problem comes from the way they keep their house. First of all, all the lights in the house should be off at all times--that is unless you absolutely need one to be on. This means that at 7pm, just after the sun has set, it's impossible to tell if it is 9pm or 3am without looking at a clock. You wouldn't even know if anyone in the house is awake. Secondly (the part relevant to the allergy issue), they do not heat the front section of the house and to conserve the little heat that they do pay for, all the doors to every room must be closed at all times. This makes for a very stuffy house and thus, the allergies. I'm learning to live with it. It's all part of the experience!

Tuesday Madame Siclon walked me to the bus stop and I took the bus to the University--about a 25 minute bus ride. There we had a tour, ate lunch at the RU (Restaurant Universitaire, aka dining hall), and received our student ID cards. We then went to get phones and I went to a pharmacy for the aforementioned Zyrtec. I have dinner with my host family on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I was on my own for dinner. I met up with a few others who were also on their own, as well our director, who ended up taking us out for a nice meal (on him!). We had a great time, but I didn't get home until a little after 12.

Today we had a tour of city. We saw the Palais des Ducs, Les Halles (markets), several Hôtels (not hotel in our sense of the word, but very old houses), as well as some other things, but it was very cold and we were all very distracted by that. We then had lunch with from French students our age and then ran some errands.

This brings me up to date! This is the first down-time I've really had since I arrived in Dijon, and so many things have happened and I have had so many French exchanges that I want to tell you all about, but it would be impossible for me to tell you everything. So this is what you get. I haven't taken any pictures of the house yet, but I will and when I do I will post them. We should be having dinner soon (I'm currently waiting to be called in for dinner, in fact) and then a few of us from the group will be going out to try some French bars with some of the French students we met at lunch today. Tomorrow we are seeing the Musée des Beaux Arts (rated 2nd best museum in France after the Louvre) and then we're having a reception at the university with some professors and administrators.

Some pictures:

Walking back to my house (my street) :


Me (looking a little too happy) on Rue de Berbisey, where one can find "les bars:"


Also, if you want to send me any letters or packages or make a surprise visit, my address is:

Jane Scheinman, chez Siclon
26bis Rue de Bellevue
21000 Dijon

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll have tons more in a few days. I hope everyone is doing well! Miss all you people back home, but I sure am experiencing a lot here. À bientôt!

And so it begins...

Well, I made it! After a long flight and lots of anxiety, I am in France. I am sitting in a hotel in rainy Troyes while the rest of my study group spends the day napping. I'll start from the beginning (sort of).

My mom and I left our house yesterday (Saturday) morning with plenty of time to get to the airport. About an hour into the trip, my mom's car starts shaking and doing all kinds of weird things, so we turn around. We met up with Tom, my step-dad, who traded cars with us, and we ended up only losing about an hour and a half. Luckily we had left with plenty of time to get to the airport, so I was there by 3 for my 7:10 flight. My mom and I ate lunch and then had a tearful goodbye at the security checkpoint, something I suspect the security people took an odd sort of pleasure in. Got through security, found my gate as well as the rest of my study group, and boarded the plane! The plane was only about half full, so I ended up having the two seats by the window to myself. The plane itself was HUGE. It was an A380, a very new and spacious plane with two floors. I was on the upper deck which was a definite first for me.

We landed in Paris around 9am (Paris time), sailed right through immigration and baggage claim, and met our study group director and our bus driver (when I was introduced to him I got to say "enchantée"-- something I've never actually said before! I was very excited about it). We had a two hour bus ride to Troyes (where we're spending the night in a hotel to rest up before meeting our host families), unloaded into our hotel rooms, and showered. I then went out to explore the city with a girl in my group while the rest of the group slept. The rain and slippery sidewalks are not the ideal circumstances for sightseeing, but we found a nice crêperie and enjoyed some crêpes and chatted. I might venture out again in a bit, seeing as we're not meeting for dinner until 7:30 and it's only just after 4. Maybe the rain will let up.

In any case, I'm off to Dijon tomorrow afternoon to meet my host family and move into my house for the semester. Until then, you can find me wandering the streets of Troyes.

4 days!

So, 4 days remain until I hop on the plane to France and I'm nowhere close to done packing. I've barely even started, actually. Instead I've been sleeping in, seeing Colgate people, reading, and eating. Overall quite relaxing--but not so productive. I'm in the process of getting a head start on this blog and figuring out how to make it aesthetically pleasing for my copious amounts of readers (ha ha), so bear with me. Seeing as I have nothing interesting to share, I will bring this brief post to a close. Feel free to follow my blog (and possibly even read what I write!) while I'm in France. I'll try to update regularly, but who knows what will happen.
À bientôt!