January 25, 1996Hey guys! This is the first of a series of weekly letters, which my Dad, being nice enough to help, is typing up and sending out. Everything's really great and everyone's really nice and I can't believe how lucky I am to be here in Aubagne. Orientation outside of Paris was loads of fun and I made friends with everyone -- we met up with some Australians and some Chileans who are staying in France too. Two girls were on the same train as me to Marseilles, which was a TGV and went pretty fast :). We didn't see any castles, though; I fell asleep for an hour and may have missed my chance. My family's wonderful - Michelle speaks English (but not often) and the daughter looks like Wednesday from the Addams Family. She acts like her too. :) We have two cats (Aristo and Azrail - yes, as in Gargamel's cat) who are always starved for attention and make noises like pigeons. I've got my own room, which is wonderful, and my only complaint about the apartment is that the shower consists of a hose with a shower head so I only have one hand free at a time. But that's ok.
Like I told some of you, I don't really have access to e-mail, since for now I'd have to dial into Champaign direct from France, and that's kind of stupid. I'm looking for a dial-up service in Marseilles but the fact remains that even local phone calls are at least 25 cents a minute if not 50. I was surprised at how expensive things were here. For example, I changed $20 in Paris, got 88 francs, and used up almost all of it buying 8 postcards and 16 stamps. School is the best. It's practically the same as Uni -- small, for smart kids, lots of interaction with the teachers, and it's in an old building. I'm a premiere L, which is like a junior, but I'm in the Literature track, which means no math or science, just French, English, Russian (seriously!), history/geography, and PE/sport (once a week.) My basic schedule is two classes in the morning, then I go home, have lunch, and at 3 go back for 2 more hours of class. It's kind of stupid, I know, but it's better than having to take Physics and Calc and Chemistry. :)
I've got the same people in all of my classes, plus or minus a couple, and they're all really friendly and nice to me. There's Laurence (a girl), who has taken me under her wing, Nadege and Guillaume, who've been going out for 6 months or a year, Charles (cute!) who lives in the next building, Anne, who looks like Gabrielle Carteris with straight hair, Celine, who looks like Dory Block (for those of you who know her), Geraldine, Christian (also cute!), Jean-Christophe (cute too!), Laurent (not so cute), and some other people whose names I don't know yet. There's a German guy here, Artur, who lived with my family last semester and left them because he was sure Magali (the daughter) was gonna kill him or something. He doesn't talk much.
Aubagne is a pretty decent little town, about 40,000 people, I think, most of whom work in Marseilles. There are two movie theatres with 5 screens; Smoke, Blue in the Face, The Santa Clause, Golden Eye, and Showgirls are playing. I think they're all dubbed, which sucks, but what can you do? Everything on TV is dubbed too: we've got Baywatch, 90210, Melrose, Growing Pains, Full House, a soap opera, Dallas, Remington Steele, that show with Blaire, Joe, Tootie, and that other girl, and A=team, Bewitched, Giligan's Island, the Streets of San Francisco, and on the satelite channel (that we don't get) Seinfeld and My So-Called Life. We even have Gargoyles on Saturday mornings. There are also 3 French Saved-by-the-Bell rip-offs, but with more interpersonal relationships. They're feeding me pretty well here -- it's not real French food but it's good and there's loads of it. Lunch is as big as dinner and they pour salt on everything. We drink water at dinner--no milk, and eat at around 9:00 each night. Since I got here on Saturday it's been cloudy and raining, except for today, so I finished up my roll of film with shots of the mountains that surround Aubagne. They're almost real mountains -- they don't have snow but they could if they wanted to. Marcel Pagnol, who wrote Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring (you may have watched them in French class) lived in the hills and downtown there's a little building with his stuff in it.
Right now the big debate in France is over obligatory military service -- whether to abolish it and have a volunteer army like the U.S., or to draft women too, among other things. The U.S. stuff that's made the news so far has been the flooding, Hilary Clinton, and the guy who was executed in Utah or Nevada.
This weekend Julien and Francois (8 and 6, Ma's grandsons) are staying over and we're going to Aix-en-Provence and the Chateau d'If, Marseilles' Alcatraz. I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys and I hope that college work, etc., hasn't kept you TOO busy. I think about all of you everyday and wish I could show you everything that's going on here. It's really amazing how things are practically the same here as at home. "You know what I love about Europe? It's the little differences." I probably mangled that Pulp Fiction quote pretty bad, but still... Once again, here is my address. Notice the second line - I recommend it since C5 isn't the apartment but the building #. The mailboxes just have names, and I taped mine underneath, but French tape is worthless and it'll probably fall off by tomorrow. Hannah Koenker Love, |
