Pfft!

Bienvenue chez McDo! If you can imagine this, I am sitting in the middle of a beautiful French downtown in a three story McDonalds™! The internet is free, so I came here today with my friends Julia and Marie. John Kitch, I just got through eating a BigMac™! I think I’m going to throw up!

Good news, the internet at the Lounge Café stopped working! STORY OF MY LIFE! I went there last Tuesday night with Rachel only to discover that the patron hadn’t paid the bill. When I went to pull up the Baylor homepage, I received a message giving me the option to pay the bill. I told the waitress and she got her boss to come and look at it. When he went to get his computer, the option to pay the bill did not come up for him. He therefore had to take my computer and pay the bill with his credit card. I now have all of his information and have to e-mail it to him. C’est la vie!

Before the adventure at the café I had another little pleasant adventure in the rain. Hélène told me that there would be a group of prayer and praise for college and career students at a local Catholic church at 20h45 Tuesday night. So, after dinner, I grabbed my coat and umbrella and walked from the apartment to Abbaye aux Hommes. On my way there, the wind almost knocked me over several times. It was crazy! When I finally saw the towers of the Abbaye I got very happy; however, when I actually got to the Abbaye, the lights were off and the doors were locked. I just laughed. I looked around the back to see if they had met somewhere else, but all of the lights were off. I called home to see if Hélène knew of any other place they might be, but I was unfortunately out of luck. I went ahead and walked to Saint Pierre to see if there might possibly be something going on there, but it was the same situation. No lights and all the doors were sealed. I’m sure there were cameras watching me walk all over the city in the rain like an idiot. I decided to go home and get my laptop to go to the Lounge Café to do some homework and that’s when I realized that their internet wasn’t working any longer. When I left the café I got all the way home (almost an entire mile away) and realized that I had left my laptop adapter at the café. I therefore walked all the way back to the café in the rain and luckily got my adapter right before they closed. I got quite a bit of exercise that day!

Earlier that night at dinner I got the opportunity to make fun of Yves as he grabbed an apple and asked his mother to peal it for him. I about died! I asked him how old he was just to verify and Hélène just laughed as she took the apple and PEELED IT! I told them that if I had asked my mother to peel an apple for me that she would have said, “the maid died!” I now make fun of Yves every time I think about the time he asked him mother to peel him an apple.

Wednesday night dinner was served at almost 21h00! It seems that Yves tried to call his dad to tell him that he would be getting another ride home from Rugby practice, but Yves-Marie did not have his cell phone. Yves came home, but Yves-Marie was still at the Rugby club waiting for him. They tried to call Yves-Marie to tell him that Yves was already at the house, but he still didn’t have his cell phone. We waited and waited, but the time just kept getting later and later. Hélène finally brought me some peanuts to keep me until we ate. Hélène finally decided that we were just going to have to eat without Yves-Marie. Benedict and Yves wanted to wait, but Hélène was too hungry. Finally Yves-Marie showed up, but was surprisingly not mad. Dad, you would have killed me! Before dinner, Hélène had given me a tin of cookies to apologize for the fact that I had to wonder all over town looking for a group that didn’t exist. It was funny.

Last night (Thursday) Linden and Rachel came over to the house for dinner again. Hélène invited them. Anne Caroline (the girl that ate with us this week) was there too. It was very fun and funny at the same time. There were times when things were said that only the family and I understood and then there were things said that only Linden, Rachel, and I understood. Linden just finally turned and spoke with Hélène for about an hour. Yves-Marie was getting very tired. We finally all decided to leave and said goodnight to the Groussiers.

We had been invited by some of the people in Andrew’s class to hang out with them for the night. We went and enjoyed their company for all of five minutes before they all started speaking english with us. (I’m sorry Grandma, I refuse to capitalize the word english any more!) Rachel and I were livid! We spoke French amongst the two of us even though everyone was speaking english. After a while everyone decided to go to some dance place, so we went along just to see. Two friends from Baylor came in to visit Andrew, so they got to experience a real French outing. Rachel and I were sitting around the table with the others at the dance place and all we heard were French accents speaking the english language. Finally Rachel just said, let’s go dance. We did, and we enjoyed ourselves (IN FRENCH!) When we were leaving, we said goodbye to all of the French people and one guy translated everything I was saying in French into english. If he only knew! If you are in the USA right now and you speak another language, I am very proud of you, but please DO NOT speak that language with any foreign people trying to learn english! It’s RUDE! I went ahead and walked Rachel to her house nearby and we spoke French the entire time! When we got to her house, we talked for at least another thirty minutes in French about how much we hate it when French people speak english with us. It was very ironic. We then talked about how were afraid that we would go back home and forget everything.
Last night I had another dream that I was back in the USA speaking english again. This morning I woke up in France! It must have been a nightmare! When I did wake up I was thinking things in French! I therefore decided that I would not be speaking english all day. It has worked so far. People are speaking english to me, but I’ve not responded in that language. As a matter of fact, I’m going to have to leave McDonalds™ soon because my friends are only speaking in english. I don’t think they understand that I want to throw things at them when they do that. I’m going to go to the gym! I hope I get the opportunity to write again soon! We’ll have to see! For now, I’ve had enough english.

Deux Jours!

I am writing to you from the beautiful Université de Caen! Oh how the cigarette butts contrast with the beige concrete buildings and graffiti! I’m on my lunch break, so I just found a plug and popped a squat in a building named, “Vissol”. It’s where most of my classes are held.

Sunday evening, I went to the cinema with Rachel and a friend of her French family named Xavier (za-vee-ay). Xavier is a high school senior that tutors the son of Rachel’s French family. We saw the film Paris (pair-ee with a French ‘r’). It was a very French film. What do I mean by that? It didn’t make a whole lot of since, and the end was left to the imagination. American films usually have some sort of happy ending or big moral, but French films are always ended with a bit of mystery. I actually like it. It takes some getting used to, but I like it.

Monday (yesterday) started off with a wonderful two hours of expressive writing. IT’S MY FAVORITE CLASS! Think again! After that class I had an hour of oral expression and then lunch. At lunch I got to eat with two of my French friends. One of them looks exactly like my hall director last semester in Penland (Hey Peter!). As a matter of fact, I walked into the cafeteria, looked across the room to see these two students, and though it was Peter. I almost ran to give him a hug and then remembered that I was in France. C’est la vie! After lunch I had another hour of expressive writing and then went to the gym. There I met a guy who always wears cloths with something about California. I’ve seen him in there several times and have always wanted to ask him about his California clothing. This time I finally just said, “Toujours Californie!” (Always California!) He laughed and then took a seat next to me to tell me about the time he studied at UCLA. I then said, “J’imagine que tu peux parler anglais!” (I imagine that you can speak English!) He told me that he could, but that I probably wouldn’t understand him. He also said that he wouldn’t speak English to me because he knows what it’s like to learn another language with people only speak your native language with you. It’s very frustrating!

After the gym I went home for dinner and saw that we had a guest. Some girl who is a friend of the Groussiers is visiting Caen and will be eating dinner with us every night this week. She’s studying to be a pharmacist here in France. She was very soft spoken, but very nice all the same. After dinner she joined the family and I in front of the television to watch a series called “Père et Maire” (Priest and Mayor). It was a good show and a good way for me to learn French! After the show it was bed time.

Every once in a while I walk by Yves room to go to the bathroom and I hear American praise and worship music playing. I burned him a CD of some Christian songs that he wanted and now it seems like the only music he listens to. He was very excited when I gave him the CD and now he wants more. They don’t have any good modern Christian music in France, so it’s very nice for him to hear Christian music that isn’t Gregorian chant or a hymnal.

Tonight after dinner I will be going to a prayer and worship group at one of the local Catholic churches. Hélène told me about it, so I figured I go and see what it’s like. Maybe I’ll meet some nice French Catholics! You never know!

PS: Some of you were asking what my address is here in Caen. I have been so bad about responding to messages and e-mails because of my internet issue, so here it is:

Chez M. Mme Groussier
24 Rue PAUL TOUTAIN
14000 Caen, FRANCE

La Reine!

Saturday. Happy day. HIGH SCHOOL DAY! ALERT THE MEDIA! As you may know, I am forced to go to a French café every day to use the internet! It’s horrible! I’m just kidding; forcing me into a French café is like trying to feed a Twinkie™ to a group of kids at a fat camp. It’s just not that hard! Today: pfft…(That’s the noise the French make when something isn’t worth discussing). Rachel and I met up at Saint Pierre for lunch and café. We landed in the same internet café, but this time it was plein (full) of high school students. If you’re a high school student, please know that the Lord loves you, but please understand that I would prefer that you stay home when I’m trying to enjoy my life in a French café! As we were enjoying our time in this café, a mob moved in to take up all of the places next to the outlets. The computer was dying and Rachel was crying over the amount of people present. We had to speak very loudly to hear one another, so they all knew that we were crazy Americans. At one point I said, “The prom queen will be coming through that door any minute now!” Five minutes later… (Insert the song “Dancing Queen”) the prom queen and her court arrived (flowers in hand)! I kid you not; a girl walked in with three friends all holding bouquets of flowers! I thought Rachel was going to throw a spoon at her head! She withheld her anger. Ok, maybe I was angrier than she was, but nonetheless, WE LEFT!

We went to Rachel’s house to use the internet, but for some reason my blog wouldn’t come up! That’s why today you get to read two blog posts! YAY! I then went home for dinner and then back out again with Rachel to make another effort. That makes number 1,234,354,987,368,21 and 1! Maybe I’ve exaggerated, but it feels like more than that even! We walked around and even sat down in a few cafés and bars before we decided on the right one. We ended up in the same café where we first met our old French friends who abandoned us the next night. We found a place in the middle of the room and waited! At one point an older couple sat in the empty chairs next to us. We were SO mad! We prayed that they would get a hot passion for one another and leave the room! THEY DID! YAY! But, then a group of smelly guys took their place. It was like beating a dead horse! Oh well! We left and went home for the night.

This morning (Sunday) Rachel was supposed to go on a trip to Honfleur, but missed the bus. I got a call at 9h35 saying, “Cole, I’ll see you at church.” I was happy to hear that I wouldn’t be there alone. Linden never goes and Jonathan went to Paris. I met Rachel at the tram stop and also ran into my English friend Carley and a French girl that we had met the other night at church. Her name is Pascal. We all walked to church together and enjoyed a VERY good sermon! After that, Rachel and I went to town to eat with Carley and our friend Magali. We then ended up back in the internet café where the Lord spoke!

After Magali and Carley left the café, two blond French girls walked in and took a seat. I told Rachel that she needed to potty and stop for a casual conversation. She’s such a good friend! I sat at my computer while Rachel went to town! I wasn’t exactly sure what they were talking about, but I do know that on their way out, they handed Rachel a phone number and told her to call them for a soirée! SCORE! Too be continued…! (PRAY THAT THIS SEQUAL ISN’T AS BAD AS THE LAST ONE!)

C’était en Français!

Right now I’m writing in French. You’re thinking, “What? This isn’t French, it’s English; I can read it!” But you’re wrong! Now, I am writing in French! Maybe by the time you read this I will have translated it into English, but for the moment, it’s French. Why am I writing in French for the first time? It’s because tonight I want to dream in French. Tonight for the first time in my life I want to have several French dreams. Also, I was in the process of speaking and thinking in French before I came back to the apartment tonight when I decided to write something for my blog. This isn’t an easy thing to do if I wish to continue in French so that I might dream in French. If I continue to think in French, I can’t write in English! What should I do? Write in French!

Today was very good for my health! I went to my grammar class (ok, not everything was good for my health) and then I went to the Lounge Café for coffee and use the internet. I went with my friend Amanda, Rachel, Andrew, and Marie. It was nice! We talked and discussed for several hours! After that I went to the gym and then back home for dinner; however, I didn’t eat. When I got home, no one was in the process of cooking anything. There was just Yves-Marie and Benedict. Yves-Marie was looking at photos of trains while Benedict was watching television. Hélène wasn’t there and Yves was at Rugby practice with his rugby team. I waited until 19h45 (7:45pm) and then I decided that I had to leave for church that would be starting at 20h00 (8:00pm). I said to Yves-Marie, “I have to leaved now.” And he said to me, “You’re not going to eat with us?” I said, “No, I can’t. It’s already 19h45 and church starts at 20h00.” He then said, “Oh, that’s sad! Have a good evening!” When I got to church I was crazy hungry! Too bad (as the French would say)!

At church Rachel was there for her first Friday service. After the service, we went to the basement for coffee like usual. After everyone had finished their café and snacks, my friends Jérôme and Kemuel washed the dishes. I went into the kitchen to speak with them. While talking with them I learned that when Francophones speak French they don’t have an accent, but when they speak English, I think, “OH MY! THEY’RE FRENCH!” C’est marrant ça ! (Sorry that doesn’t exactly translate!)

After the dishes were done, the guys decided to be a bit mean to the girls. Rachel lost her shoe while trying to kick a soccer ball and Kemuel decided to steal it for a game of “Keep Away”. It was very funny and very good for my French! Kemuel is probably one of the funniest people in the world! In the past I didn’t think that would ever be able to understand French and converse in French, but after tonight, I KNOW that it’s possible! THANK YOU GOD! It was midnight before we left!

After church our friend Magalie took Rachel and I into Centre Ville so that I could eat. We then met Linden at Saint Pière so that she could eat as well. We then decided not to speak in English for the rest of the night. After a night at church like this one, I didn’t want to adulterate it with English. While eating Rachel said to me, “Cole, cover your ears! I must say something in English!” I did and afterwards it was nothing but French. MAIS OUI! After Linden and I had eaten, we ran into our friends Marie and Julia (Julia from Norway). We decided to walk together to look for a place to hang out. We were out of luck because all of the places were closed. So, we said goodbye and now I’m back in the apartment typing in French! It’s 7:39pm (in Texas) and I am VERY tired! Good night!