Break

Right now, the United States is all about hurricanes and Halloween.  Meanwhile, here in France, the students are on break.  All of them.  And since I'm part of the system, I'm taking advantage of it too.  So what am I going to do with my week?  Let's just say, 'bon voyage.'

To make it short, I am going by train to Paris tomorrow morning, spending three days there and seeing pretty much everything I can.  The Eiffel Tower, The Champs Elysée, L'Arc de Triumph, and possibly things like the Catacombs, the various cemeteries, the Notre Dame, and pretty much anywhere else I can go to on foot.

After Paris, I am going once again by train to Brussels, Belgium, where I will commence my search for the best French Fries, the best Waffles, and the best chocolate.  Then, Sunday night, Coheed and Cambria, one of the bands on my bucket list, is playing, which of course, I am going to go see.  Strike one off the list.

Finnaly, the day before classes restart, I will voyage back to my now familiar part of a once unknown country/continent.

Another Day, Another ___?

So here in France, I was able to make a friend who I didn't meet through anyone else; meaning that yes, I am capable of autonomous social interactions.  Sadly, he is another Anglophone like me, but instead of American, he is from Ireland, so even though we both only really speak English to each other, it's still slightly different, so I am getting some variety.

While this friend of mine, Scott, uses some sayings that are really only used in the UK, I heard him say something that I hear in the states- and that took me for a loop.  "Another day, another dollar."  It may not sound weird to the average person, but remember: they use Euros over here.  Dollars won't get you anything over here.

Does that means that people who say this think what work they did was for nothing?  What if, when I went back to United States, I started saying "Another day, another Euro?"  It definitely wouldn't work in Japan either, with one Yen being worth about one cent.  Maybe if I was really obsessively choosey about how I get payed, I could say "another day, another pound," because, after all, Britain seems to really like their own personal currency in lieu of something nice and standardized that exists for almost the entire rest of Europe.

Maybe the Europeans secretly know that one day the Euro will crash and the only the American dollar will be around to save the world economy, as weak as it might be.

Graffitti

No matter what country one lives in, I think there is a universal urge lying inside all of us- the urge to take a plain, boring surface and spice it up.

Graffiti- or in French, graffiti (it's the same, just say it with a French accent) is pretty much everywhere.  In big amphitheater classrooms, the desks are basically one big continuous piece of wood that stretches from one side of the classroom to another.  They contain all matters of etchings and drawings in pen, pencil highlighter, marker, whatever- with noticeably less markings near the front where the lecturer can see you defacing school property.  I've seen drawings from ranging from abstract-gothic art to pencilings of Joseph Stalin, all the way to possible gang signs, tic-tac-toe, as well as phrases and sayings in no less than three languages.  Some of my favorite ones include:

"Dubstep saved my life last night."

"Ceci n'est pas un cours" (This is not a class, a modification of a popular French saying.)

Around town, it is hard to find a blank wall (gaffiti or not).

Courtesy Kevin L

Surprisingly enough, people are considerate enough to not paint on most of the two-thousand-year-old buildings which would be probably be near impossible to restore back to their pre-painted-on state.  Modern structures, on the other hand, are perfectly fine.

Part mural part graffiti.

The Canals

Salut and The Republic

*The title of this post is based off of something our adviser (Judith) said during a meeting during the prestage- I believe she said that it would make a good title for an article or something, so I took it literally and decided to make a post on it.  I apologize if anyone has already made a post on this- and if I've now taken your idea, well; you had plenty of time to do it.*

France is referred to as a republic- meaning that it should have a social structure meant for everyone to be more or less equal, specifically in the government.  I believe it has been like this since the French Revolution, where the citizens lobbed off the heads of Marie Antoinette and Louis the 16th- the "Absolute Monarchs" and made their own government.

What contradicts this idea of equality, however strangely enough, is the language itself.  Unlike in English, there are two ways to say 'you': tu, and vous.  Vous works for plural 'you,' as in the ever popular southernism 'y'all'.  However, it is used also in the singular as a more proper, polite way of saying 'tu.'  And people take the use seriously here.  

The general rule of thumb that I would define it that if you can call someone by their first name only, one can use tu. All other cases, vous and all other polite forms (possessive pronouns, conjugations, commands, etc.: pretty much to be expected for the sake of consistency) should be used.  One thing that people tend to forget, though, it Salut.

Salut translates pretty closely to 'hi,' in English, with Bonjour being the more formal "hello," but it is never used the same way.  Salut is another one that you would only use with tu, so while in the United State, we go around saying 'hi' to everybody, if one tries to do the same thing here in France, it would end up with dirty looks, among other things possibly.

So, morale of the story; unless you know absolutely sure, use vous.

Lexical Shift

A long, long time ago, a group of warriors called the Normans arrived on an island off the coast of ancient Europe.  The Normans, speaking an ancient version of what we now call 'French' took over the land of the people that lived on this island, a place now called 'England.'  This is why modern day English, a Germanic language, has so many cognates with French, a Romantic (Latin origin) language.

Cognates help people like me, a non-native speaker, to put together phrases and describe things I wouldn't normally be able to describe because, with luck, if you say an English word with the right intonation and accent, it might end up sounding like a word that is actually used by the native speakers.

Unfortunately, there are always faux-amis: false friends.  Like those people who hag out with you, and as soon as you're not willing to take one for the team (read: them) they're out of there.  Faux amis are words that seem like they are the same word in both English and French, but are actually not, which leads to an exchange student's worst nightmare, MISUNDERSTANDING.

While French breakfast usually consists of bread with butter and jelly (preserves, if you may.), don't ask for "preservatifs," unless you like condoms on toasty baguettes.  

The worst part is when a bunch of faux-amis get together in a while bad friend party (like every party in high school I was never invited to) and decided to all shift over one meaning:

"Attendre" in French does not mean to 'attend,' it actually means to wait.

To attend is "Assister"- luckily, 'to assist' doesn't somehow turn back into a French verb that sounds like 'wait.'

The only thing that makes me wonder is how 'raisin' - the French word for 'grape' somehow got turned into the dried version of said fruit.  At least it didn't turn into a word for wine...