Pas de Probleme

So when you're in a foreign country, there are certain things you probably shouldn't write on your blog.  When I first got here to Pau, I didn't think I would like Pau at all, and I didn't think I was going to like my host family.  They really intimidated me, and for some reason their speech is a lot more complicated than it needs to be. When I dined with Anne's host family I could understand their dinner conversation very easily, but my own family I can never understand them when they talk, even when they're trying to talk to me. Also, they never understand me when I try to respond to them. They look at me funny and ask me additional questions.  And I didn't think my host mom liked me very much because she was always grumpy around me.


Today I had a very good day. I went to town with Stephanie, Matthew (who is from Moscow, Idaho) and James (who is from Boise) after our second half of orientation. We went and got prepaid cell phones and exchanged numbers, and then we went to that Irish pub that I visited the other night. (Except this time it was the middle of the afternoon so it was much calmer. I got a coke, Stephanie had water, and the boys ventured for some Belgian and Irish beers. Nothing too exciting.) After that we walked to the funicular, rode it down to the Pau train station and bought age 12-25 discount cards. They cost 49 euro and are valid for a year, they can give us a youth discount anywhere between 25% and 60% depending on what day and time we get tickets for. We also went to H&M because Mathieu did not bring shorts to France and Pau does not start getting decently cold weather until mid-November. After that we caught the bus back to the University and then I went to the grocery store with Stephanie.


The point was, I got to practice my French a lot all day, because poor James doesn't really know any French at all. I helped him get his phone and his card at the train station. In addition to that, the lady behind the counter when I bought my own card at the train station didn't know a single word of English, and she didn't understand my Idaho driver's license (In France, my birthday should be written 11/01/1992. When I told her that it's the eleventh of January in 1992 she pointed at my card and said first of November?  She was just a little confused.  Also, James doesn't know his address and had to keep asking me for it. I know it because I live down the street from him and I remembered that I'm at 9, Anne is at 11 and James is at 6.  When I told James' lady his street address, my lady got confused and thought we lived at the same address).  Then there was the lady at the register in the grocery store. She seemed to really appreciate the fact that we are American students trying to learn French, and she was conversing with us to help us out. When Stephanie apologized for her misuse of French the lady told her that it's okay because she's learning.


Overall the French people are very nice, and very easy to talk to (part of the reason my family frustrated me so much. I seemed to be able to talk to anyone else, but my own host family I couldn't understand or talk to). But when I got home today, I went in and told my host dad that I got my phone and gave him my number.  He is the one in the family that I was least intimidated by.  And I had dinner with them, like I have been doing.  Last night after dinner they explained to me that they would give me my two meals a week and if I wanted to participate in extra meals they would mark them on the calendar and each Sunday I could pay 3 euros for each extra meal. Which is cheap, about 4 dollars a meal, and I get the benefit of being with the family, listening to them speak French, and tonight they actually talked to me a little (which they hadn't been doing much before).  So I guess I'm a little glad that they speak more complicated than others, because if I can catch on to that and keep up with it, I could maybe learn to speak like that too.  I don't know if that would happen in just a semester but I will definitely improve.


So this morning I decided that whether I like it or not, I'm going to love Pau, because I'm here for a semester and I need it, so I should make the best of it. But after the good day I had today I'm thinking maybe I will genuinely like it here.


On a final note, I wanted to touch on how much France has made me appreciate the price of drinks back in the States.  Now, all my life my mother has not allowed us to order anything but water in a restaurant because it's too expensive.  But.... in the States you might pay two to three dollars for a bottomless drink. In France, if you order a Coke in a restaurant, you will probably be paying around seven dollars for an almost twelve ounce bottle of Coke. No refills.  I don't think I'll ever blink twice at drink prices in the US again. (Well, except maybe at the movie theater.)  Even at the grocery store (cheapest place to get a drink in France) an approximately 17 ounce bottle of Coke (it's centiliters. 50 centiliters at the grocery store, 33cl in the restaurant bottles, and in the cans.) is about $2.50.  (Now, obviously I did find that buying a 6-pack of 50cl bottles is a little more reasonable. 4,25 euro for 6 bottles is about one US dollar per bottle.)  I know, what do I need Coke for anyways? Well I haven't had a whole lot of it, it's just that all they have around this house is water, orange juice and wine. I don't want wine, I don't like orange juice, and I'm tired of water.