Hello, bonjour, hola!
On Saturday I decided I wanted to do some sort of sight seeing, so I searched on good old Google for some free things to do in Paris (I may be in Paris, but I am definitely still a poor student). After reading our choices - which included a wander round the gardens of Luxembourg, Notre-Dame Cathedral and Sacré-Coeur - to Sam, we decided to go take a stroll around Cimetière Père-Lachaise, which is a cemetery very near the first flat we looked round (I was a little bit nervous that we might bump into our pal Paddy!). It may sound a bit morbid, but actually it was pretty cool and some of the graves were beautiful. This cemetery holds the graves of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Chopin and Molière, but we only managed to find Oscar Wilde's grave (success no.1 - being cultural and all that jazz) because the place was so bloody big!
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| Oscar Wilde's grave |
On Saturday night we had friends over for drinks and then attempted to go out, the key word being 'attempted' as what actually happened was we walked up and down a road for what felt like a lifetime, trying to get into the clubs there, but getting rejected because we were wearing trainers. We'd stand and ask to go in, and the bouncers would stare at our shoes for a bit six years and then just shake their heads at us. Rude.
I was pretty happy though as the taxi driver who took us to the clubs was a lovely French man, we 100% became best friends and had a lovely chat IN FRENCH (miracle) about all sorts of things. I told him about snapping a guy's head off in the Orange shop when he spoke to me in English after I said that I was from England and needed a sim card for my time in Paris, and he told me about his kids, his job and a why the Eiffel Tower wasn't lit up (success no.2 - French conversation).
[Tip 1: if you want to go to a club, the best thing you can do is book tickets for a specific club night, otherwise you're at risk of being turned down for the wrong attire. Still feeling bitter over the rejection of my poor Nikes.]
[Tip 2: Try your best to speak to adults in French, the students at the uni here don't seem to want to socialise with us Erasmus lot, but people like taxi drivers and shop assistants are nice enough. Also if, like the man who served me in the Orange shop, they just switch to English, just keep answering them in French (even if the answer is just 'oui') and tell them you want to speak in French. They'll get the message eventually!]
My third and final success story is Monday. Did I manage to find every classroom? Yes. Did I understand at least some of what was going on in the lectures? Yes! A vast improvement on last Monday, that's for sure. The first seminar was Cinematographic Analysis and this time, we sat closer to the lecturer this time so we could hear when she switch between French and Spanish, definitely a good move! The next lecture was a sociology module called Theory and Concepts and I found it really interesting; it was all about definitely sociology, although he did mention suicide a few times which threw me... The last seminar was the most boring two hours of my life, but at least I got there! (Success no.3 - not failing at student life)
I've also been watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix with French subtitles and hoping that counts as work. I can recommend it as a great way of perfecting your ability to swear in French. I've learnt all sorts of phrases I probably shouldn't and won't use very often! My favourite is «je sais que dalle» which means 'I don't know shit' (sorry mum), very useful to describe my feelings after every single lecture so far.
À bientôt!
Bean x
