Waking Up with Old Men

Call me old-fashioned but it is not often I wake up with a strange man in my room.  


(If you actually know me, you know the first sentence should be something more like this: 
I never wake up with any man in my room.
However, for the sake of being interesting and mysterious I'll leave it how it is.)

That was 100% true of my life...until today.

This morning was not like any other morning of my life.  I take full responsibility for the events that unfolded this morning.  Had I been out of bed before 10:00am like those people who contribute to society, none of this would not have happened.

At approximately 10:09am this morning I heard the distant sounds of keys unlocking a door.  Thinking my neighbor was returning, I go back to some much-needed beauty rest.  Before I can even close my eyes, I hear knocking as a door opens and I realize this is not my neighbor returning to his room, but someone entering my room.  At this point, I had no time to prepare for my surprise visitor; this person was about to see me in all my early-morning beauty.

Now, it doesn't often take me too much time to get ready.  Give me a few minutes to brush my hair, brush my teeth, and throw on something reasonably decent and I can be ready to go.  (My mother and I often disagree on the definition of "reasonably decent".  Sweatshirts from the 1970's?  I'd say that's not only decent but cool.  She would disagree.)

Today, however, my mother and I would both agree that what I had on was not reasonably decent.  In fact, it wasn't even reasonable.  Surprise Visitor had not given me any time to get ready and, quite frankly, I was not about to let this old French man see what I sleep in... so I had to resort to the timeless trick of pretending to still be asleep.  Luckily I had mastered this trick in the days of my youth.  I've been preparing for this moment for ages.  This was the big test.

As I heard him step into my room, I casually look up at him from my bed and roll over.

"Good," I hear him mumble in French, which I am sure was not in any way a comment on my appearance.  He steps into my bathroom, moves something, then leaves while announcing that he's leaving the door unlocked.


If you're waiting to hear why this strange man was in my room this morning, you are not waiting alone.  I still don't know.

It's a good thing I've played charades before...

Life here is a combination of never-ending pop quizzes and one very long game of charades.  It’s like when you think you know all the material for a test because it looks familiar but on the actual test you have no idea what it really means.  A typical conversation for us goes something like this:

The five of us think, plan, and practice asking a question.

We flawlessly execute the well-rehearsed phrase.

Cashier/Secretary/Student looks at us like we’re stupid.

We ask it again, this time with hand-gestures for emphasis.

They look to another French person with them and figure out what we’re asking.  After twenty awkward seconds they somehow magically understand and “correct” whatever we said…saying the same words we thought we were saying.

They respond really fast.

We stand there for a minute, trying to comprehend what they just said.  Was that a question?  Should I just nod my head and smile?  Are these directions for something?  Does Hannah know what’s going on?  Then it’s time for us to fess up by saying something in French about how we don’t speak much French.

They say in English, “Oh, you speak English?  Why didn’t you say so?!”

Note:  I’m not sure how they always know that we speak English (and not German or Spanish or some other language).  I’m still trying to figure that out.  Yesterday we went to a cute little restaurant on the port.  All we said was “Bonjour!” and the man asked if we spoke English.  (Also, this was in the afternoon so it’s not like we used the wrong greeting.  See “Bonjour!” post for more information.)

Avoiding French Boys: Soccer Ball to the Gut

(The last in a series)
At this point, I'm sure you've all given up hope that this blog will ever give you practical information.  I'm going to highly suggest you read this one post before you give up on me.  So maybe speaking English didn't work for you.  And probably the stand-really-still method wasn't overly successful for you.  Give me one more chance.  I promise this one will get the message across.

3) Soccer Ball to the Gut

Example: On a typical 50°F day, the five of us decide we would like to tour our new campus.  As we begin climbing the hill to our dorm, we see a group of boys traveling down the hill with a soccer ball.  They "accidentally" kick the ball to us at the bottom of the hill and we kindly kick it back.  Their leader, thinking that we must be interested (and not realizing we were just stopping the ball from rolling all the way down the hill), kicks it back a second time.  This time, we give it back to him and keep walking.  We helped them twice but now they're on their own.

And then they pushed their luck.  They did it a third time.

Now, maybe what happened next was an accident.  Really, we are nice girls.  Or maybe it was just a lack of athletic ability.  I'm not sure exactly how it happened but, being just a few steps away from the boys, we returned the ball to their leader...by means of kicking it right into his gut.

And that was the last time anyone has tried to pass us a soccer ball here.

Avoiding French Boys: Don't Move

(2 in a series of 3)

Think back to the last time a professor asked a question that you absolutely did not want to answer.  What did you do? 

Chances are, you probably sat as still as possible.  His eyes will catch even the slightest movement so it is necessary that you not move.  Eventually he sees some poor freshman in the back row reach up to scratch an itch and BAM! Itchy Freshman is stuck answering the question as the rest of you enjoy your freedom of movement again.

Well, the same thing can work to avoid boys in France.

2) Don’t move. 

Example: On our first weekend here, we met up with a group to go into town.  As we were introducing ourselves to one of the French natives, we went to shake hands with him.  The French boy politely reached out his hand but reminded us they don’t do that in France, instead they “faire la bise”.

Now, I’m all for making new friends.  Really.  I know it’s quite rude not to introduce myself.  However at this point I had just gotten out of bed about ten minutes beforehand, I hadn’t showered (It’s too hard!...see ‘Showers’ post for more info), and I was still sick.  The very last thing I wanted to be doing was kissing some stranger.

Anyhow, we shyly make a joke about how we don’t know how to do that yet.  He teaches the first girl in our group how they do it and she performs it perfectly.  That figures.  Secretly everyone always wants the first person to fail because then there are really low standards for everyone else.  Now she had invalidated the “Oh everyone messes it up first time” statement that would inevitably be coming as soon as I tried it. It looks easy…but what if I can’t do it?  I’m sure not going next.  There is a high probability I’ll mess it up somehow and I’m not ready for that.

Instead, I pull the stand-really-still-until-he-stops-looking-at-me-or-until-someone-else-messes-up method.  Literally, I froze as soon as they finished.  No more speaking.  No more coughing.  No more moving.  If I’m really, really still, he’ll forget I’m there and Itchy Freshman will get stuck going next.

Unfortunately, the rest of the girls pulled that same method.  Looking back, we probably should have communicated better so that one of us was pulling the stand-really-still method, one the turn-around-and-pretend-to-look-in-my-purse-for-something method, and one the I’m-not-making-eye-contact-with-you method.  Unfortunately, now we’re left with four girls standing frozen in the lobby, one very confused French boy, and nobody to be Itchy Freshman.  I wait for one of the other girls to take one for the team but today we all wanted to sit the bench.  After another minute or so of frozen silence, everyone involved pretends like it didn’t happen and continues on with the conversation.

Success.

Avoiding French Boys: Speak English

(1 in a series of 3)

“Remember, the French only smile when they’re laughing or when they’re interested in someone, “ my French professor says to me every semester. 

For those of you who know my overwhelming tendency to smile, you may be concerned to learn that tidbit of information.  Not to worry Mom and Dad, we’ve got that under control.

At this point I have developed three strategies for avoiding French boys:

1) Speak English. 

Example: After we got off the train, we had to travel below the train tracks to get to our next destination.  Due to my inability to pack lightly, I found myself with two large suitcases, a backpack, and a purse, together equaling my bodyweight.  (This, for once, is not any sort of exaggeration.  My luggage really did weigh as much as I did.)  The exit signs all pointed to a sketchy, dark staircase but, being the smart women that we are, we knew that was not a good idea to go down those stairs.  Dangerous people could be lurking in all sorts of corners. 

So instead, we took the elevator.  The elevator was not full of any dangerous people but it had the same sketchy feeling as it slowly made its descent underground.  As I looked around the elevator, enjoying the sounds of the gears clicking and grinding against each other, I noticed the big red sign reminding the riders not to have more than five occupants.  Since I was currently crammed between Megan and Hannah and standing on one foot to make room for all of our luggage, the thought of five people made me laugh.

*click, click, click, pause

But then I remembered I was carrying around an extra person with me.  That would be fine.  Four is less than five.  I remained calm and reassured myself that the elevator always made those sounds.  Then I mentally calculated the weight of Megan’s bags.

*click, click

Not quite a whole person.  We’re still ok.

*click, pause

The three of us look at each other.  Now, I can’t read minds, but I’m about 99% sure that the three of us were thinking something along the lines of, “If this elevator breaks down, that’s it.  We’re about to be eaten by French rats.  Not Ratatouille.  He’s nice.  But those other ones will get us in no time.”

*click, click, click

The elevator keeps moving but at this point I realized that the three of us and our luggage would be more than the weight limit.  (Now, you Americans are probably thinking that we’re nothing but little girls and when they talk about people for occupancy reasons they mean full-grown men...  Well in France full-grown men are smaller than me.  I hope you feel ashamed of what the Obesity Epidemic in America has done to you.) 

*click, click, stop

*pause

(panic starts to set in)

*door opens

While we walk through some type of underground tunnel we all breathe a sigh of relief that we are done with that elevator.  And then we see another one... this time going up.  At this point, my arms are burning from dragging around my extra self all day but there was no chance the three of us were getting back on any elevator.  Instead, we start carrying our bags one by one to the landing, then finally to the road.

As we are in the process of doing this, a teenage French boy decides he will take a break from his cigarette and scampers down the flight of stairs towards us.  I thought he might want to help us but he also could have wanted to steal my luggage.  Either way I wouldn’t have to carry it up the stairs so I just went with it.  As he goes to grab it with one hand, I warn him in English that it’s heavy.

Maybe he didn’t speak English.  Or maybe he was trying to be macho.  Regardless, this frail teenager picks up my 50-pound bag with one arm, Hannah’s bag in the other, and stumbles to the top of the stairs, being sure that we noticed his impressive physical feat.  Personally, I was too concerned that his twig-like arms were going to snap into pieces to be impressed by his good deed but he pauses just long enough at the top of the stairs to give us a big old smile.

He runs down the stairs again to bring up our last bag and tries to say a few suave things to us in French.  We, of course, don’t know what he’s saying but out of habit we say something to him in English.  He looks at us confused for a moment then mutters a disappointed “Good night”  to us as we walk away.

(Note: The “Speak English” tactic will not always work.  Sometimes that only makes you more of a target.  If you think this might be the case, you better hope I post the other two defenses really soon!)

Bonjour!

I’ve been using “bonjour” since I was in middle school.  We would say it walking into class or passing the French teacher in the hallway.  I figured after seven years of French I had pretty much mastered that word.  It’s a simple greeting used as you pass someone, just like saying “hello”, right?

Turns out, I’m wrong. 

Ok so before you all judge me I just want a chance to defend myself. I really did know this before, I just had never really thought about it or needed to use French outside of the school day.  The literal translation would look like this:

Bon= good

Jour = day

Bon + jour = good day

Being the die-hard Muskies that we are, we thought we had the right to try out the Muskie Bonjour while in France.  Therefore, when we saw a group pass us on campus one night, we put on our best French accents and said, “Bonjour!” 

We were feeling pretty fluent in our new language until the passing group all responded, “Bonsoir!”

Of course.  Soir means “night”.  So at 8pm we probably should have not been greeting them “Good day”.  And although Bonsoir Group didn’t say anything else to us, I bet they were thinking that Americans couldn’t even tell the difference between day and night.

On a related note, today I saw a girl dragging around a huge suitcase.  I greeted her with a well-timed “Bonjour!” and she responded with “Hi!”  I was convinced she was an American just arriving in France so I started talking to her in English. 

She’s Italian and doesn’t even know English.  I guess it’s ok to use English greetings here, which is great to find out after spending all that time figuring out the French ones.

Showers

By some sort of miracle (and the help of a dozen people) the three of us safely arrived at our school.  I thought life would get easier being at the school but that is not the case.  Many of the upcoming posts will be about the simple things that I just can’t master.  I suppose I should also take a moment here to apologize to every American I know.  If the French people didn’t stereotype Americans as loud, lazy, and stupid before I got here, I’m pretty sure I’ve done everything possible to validate that stereotype.

Within minutes of getting into the dorm I wanted to take a shower.  Now, I realize that this was probably a little ambitious of me.  After all, there are showers in the U.S. I still can’t figure out.  Not showering after 30-some hours of travel makes people do dumb things though, so there I was, preparing for my first shower in France.

The shower in front of me was not like any shower I’d ever had to figure out before.  This was more like one of those sinks you see in public bathrooms with the one knob that has to be pushed down.  So you use all your strength to push it in and, just as you start rinsing your hands, the handle pops back up.  Now you take your sudsy hands and try to get the water to start again but due to the soap on your hands, your hands fly off the knob, causing you to punch the wall in front of you.  Naturally, you resort to using your forearms this time but the only way you can reach now is to prop your stomach against the edge of the wet sink.  You eventually get the suds all washed off your hands, only to find your stomach has absorbed all the water off the sink and your shirt has an unexplainable large wet spot for the next thirty minutes.

That’s pretty much what it’s like to shower in my room.  I push the button and start washing my hair.  Then, just as I start to enjoy the nice, warm shower, the water shuts off.  Shivering, I hit the button again and then the whole cycle repeats.  This happens over and over again until I decide that the shower has won that day’s battle.  The other option, of course, is to figure out how to shower using only one arm to wash myself and the other arm propped against the button.   Today I tried this technique.  It went something like this:

• Use left arm to wash right half of body while body weight is pushing on right elbow to get the knob to stay in.

• Switch.

• Switch back to get the forgotten right shoulder.

• Switch again to get the unreachable spot on back.

• Use both arms to get unreachable spot.

• Shower shuts off.

Also, my first shower resorted in not only my entire bathroom flooding but also puddles of water in my room.