À Paris
Hi everyone,
I'm sitting in my new bedroom in Paris where I'll be staying for the next nine months or so. I'm living with Madame and Monsieur Delisle, as well as they 19 year-old son Antoine and their friend's 20 year-old son Adrien. Madame Delisle speaks French faster than a Parisian auctioneer. However, I'm getting the hang of it. Monsieur Delisle is an engineer who smokes a pipe (OK, I know very little about them so far). Antoine looks exactly (exactly) like Eric Bowman of Atheists Agnostics and Freethinkers fame. Madame Delisle throws in English words and phrases every now and again to be cute like "as you like!" and "byebye" and "good." They're incredibly hospitible so far. They were happy to see that I'm somewhat outgoing as the student they had last year was apparently a lone wolf type.
My room is fantastic. I'll have pictures later, but it's a good size (a little bigger than my Major single) with an excellently large desk, a copious armoire and a golden framed picture of Jesus. Rue de Lourmel is apparently a very busy and commercial street with cafes strewn about, bars, nightclubs and all sorts of fun places to go. I'm on the second floor down the hall and to the right, where I share a bathroom and toilet (separate rooms) with Adrien across the hall. The salon and kitchen are downstairs. The latter is a tiny dirty alcove while the former is a vast, luxurious, museum-like space. I saw paintings and orante candle-holders and lacqoured (spelled wrong) furniture and the works. I don't plan on hanging out there in fear of breaking things.
Sarah lives down the street but I don't have her number, nor do I have a portable phone. I think I might try to find one tonight, although it's getting late. It's Sunday night right now, though I'll be sending this out tomorrow morning/afternoon. There's no Internet in the house, so I'll be counting on Reid Hall which is only a few metro stops away.
Phew! I'm all settled now and still a little jarred from the driving and flying and bus-ing and driving and talking. This family is really going to push my French-speaking pedal to the mettle. Adrien apparently plays as much guitar as I do, so we'll probably be able to play together. Oh man, I'm wired and excited for this whole thing, yet I'm afraid to leave my room! I smell some serious brownies cooking downstairs, which is a wonderful start.
I guess I can share with you guys my prospective classes real quick:
- Poetics and History of French Literary Theory (longest name ever) will probably be my most intense course as it meets for about five hours per week and is designed for sophomores. It's at Paris III (La Sorbonne).
- Paris Théâtre involves seeing a real live play every two weeks and studying it. It's a Hamilton-offered course so it's at Reid Hall with American students.
- Franco-African Relations is my poltical/sociological course for the semester and is taught by the Middlebury-something-something consortium. I don't know where it is, but it too will be full of American students.
- Photography! I'm taking an(other) introductory photography course at SPÉOS which stands for something impressive and French I'm sure. They don't offer anything other courses to those who study abroad. I'm terribly excited.
- Literature and the working class will fill my schedule If I drop happen to drop Paris Théâtre. It's a sophmore level comparative literature course at Paris III, but I don't yet know when it meets.
So that's that, I don't want this e-mail to get fatter than it is, so I give you the final pictures from Biarritz (the fête d'adieu where I juggled and Sarah played clarient and a final excursion to Bayonne with Sarah to get a new suitcase):
Pictures!
Au revoir!
Christophe