By Request

France, as far as I’m concerned, was the best decision for me. I learned a lot about self-confidence, my culture as compared to several others and a love for teaching and learning languages. It would take probably another novel to describe my time in Clermont Ferrand, so we’ll just go through a typical day in the life.

In the morning, I wake up in my little “chambre huit” or “room 8” in the dorms. It is literally a room about the width of my arm span. I have a bed that is perfectly Stephanie-sized. Anyone bigger than me would tumble off. Partitioned behind the bed, I have a little “lavabo” where I wash my hands, my plates and the occasional piece of laundry. The closet is across from the lavabo and is about the same size. Luckily, I only packed for about two weeks. I wash these clothes once a week in a little laundry room down the hill and wear them again. I do have a wall-sized window and a large desk where I can sit and watch le tram go by. In the winter, I took le tram everywhere but once it warmed up, I just walked.

My favorite meal by far is breakfast because I buy a box of croissants or almond pastries or apricot pastries every week. I don’t have a refrigerator, but the super marché (ATAC) is across the bridge and milk here doesn’t go bad as fast as American milk so I can buy a smaller container to last me a few days.

Then I head down the hall and pray there aren’t any boys in the showers. Though there are four stalls, I’ve gotten stuck next to a guy enough times to know how disgusting they are in the shower. I also want to shower before the femmes du chambres arrive. They will stand outside the shower muttering and tapping their feet impatiently until you leave. The same goes for the toilets, which are right next door and set up just like the showers. You have to supply your own toilet paper.

After all that, I gather all my papers, etc and start my walk to school. I’m not sure exactly how far Blaise Pascal is from the dorms but it took me about 15-20 minutes every morning to get there on foot. I like walking in the morning because there is a great view of the mist rising off the mountains from the bridge. I’m in level 3 of 6 in terms of speaking French. That means I can carry a basic conversation and read Glamour in French but I’d have a hard time talking about technical subjects. My classmates are all foreign. Most of them are Chinese and, though friendly, prefer to talk among themselves. I hang out with the four who aren’t. First there’s Marta, a 30-something Mexican doctor who fell in love with a man from Clermont and moved to marry him. Next is Khai, a Vietnamese programming guy who is also in his 30s but looks like he’s around 14. Khai is nicknamed “Khai-sourire” or “Smiley Khai” because he giggles at everything. I think he looks a little like Yoda. He giggled about that too. Then there is Huan Chen. She’s from Tawain and wants to study fashion in Paris. She is always dressed to kill but maintains a heart of gold. She also lives at the dorms so we walk home together most days. Diego is from Brazil and it is from him that I learn everything you’ve heard about Brazilians is true. He’s equally gorgeous and pompous and has made it his mission to see that everyone falls madly in love with him. Unfortunately, he also sleeps through most of class, which hinders his mission considerably. When he isn’t snoring, he writes “Steph hearts Diego” all over our group assignments, much to the enjoyment of Khai. Marta puts him in his place for me. Huan Chen rolls her eyes and whispers that he’s probably drunk to make me laugh. Here we all have a section (mine is 3C) so we all take the same classes together and by the end of the semester, I’m more than sorry I can’t take them with me.

Class here is two hours long with a 15 minute break in between. I have about one a day, though each deals with a different aspect of the French language. I have Grammar, Speech, Listening, Writing and Regional Culture. Naturally, culture was one of my favorites.

The rest of my day is spent hanging out with the other American exchange students, my 3C classmates, skyping, reading and eating. I skype the family every Sunday at 4 pm Paris time, which is 9 am their time. On Wednesday, I skype my boyfriend at around the same time. We don’t have internet in the dorms, so we have to go down to batiment A (building A) to connect. That’s the building with the laundry room, the cafeteria, and the main office. The internet in Batiment A connects for about five minutes at a time, if you are lucky. Most of us ended up trekking across the bridge to the only American restaurant in town for free wifi: Subway. So I grab a late lunch at Subway every Wednesday and Sunday to talk to America.

So that’s about it. On breaks I did a little traveling with friends and my family came to pick me up after finals. Waiting at Charles De Galle, sitting on my luggage watching the terminal for my family to come through was really one of my favorite parts. I got to share Paris and Clermont with them and then travel on to Switzerland and Italy.

I hope this makes up for lost time at least a little bit. I have infinitely more stories of France but if you’ve been sitting in one place while you were reading this, it is definitely time for a stretch.