Q & A

To mix up my blog posts a little bit, I am going to do a bit of Q&A. Here are the most common questions I get asked by people back home!

Q: How is the food, and what do you eat the most?

A: The food is wonderful. Expensive if you want to eat at a cafe or a brasserie, which are the little street restaurants. Usually, I just buy some food at the little supermarket nearby, and just make dinner at home or bring a picnic to a park. Dinner usually consists of pasta, because it is the easiest and fastest to make. However, lunch is typically a baguette with different cheeses. I absolutely LOVE all the cheese that is sold in France. I want to bring it all back home with me.

A great afternoon snack is usually a crepe from a stand somewhere, usually a sugar crepe. Every now and then, I get a salty crepe with fromage (cheese) and sometimes an egg or chicken. It reminds me a bit like a quesadilla!

One of the most common places we eat at: McDonalds. Its cheap and they have coffee and pastries. I have eaten at McDonalds more in the past month that I have been here than in the past year at home (take that, American stereotypes. Europeans love McDonalds!)

Q: How is your French?

A: Nope, I am not a native French speaker, nor do I think I will be by the time I leave. My main problem is my American accent: Philadelphian's don't have super strong regional accents, but I sure do have an American accent. The biggest difference is on "r": we have a much more defined "r" in our words, whereas French is much more from the throat. So almost immediately, on words like "Bonjour" and "crepe", people can tell French is not my native language. In the past few weeks I have been here, I have noticed my pronunciation has improved a little bit. Hopefully by the end, I will at least be able to speak French without too strong of an accent!

Conversation wise, I speak English to all my European friends, since that is the language we are all the most fluent is. I speak English in my classes, because they are conducted in English. I use French mainly at the grocery store and when I buy food at a cafe. So, most of my French has revolved around "Un sac, s'il vous plaites" (grocery bag, please) and answering "sur place ou emporter?" (for here or to go?) Mainly convenience phrases. But I am hoping having a French class taught by a French person will actually help, as well as listening to French radio (found a train website that plays it) and trying to have a conversation with cashiers and cafe workers.

Q: What are your classes like?

A: There are two main differences between classes here: 1- How they are graded and 2- Times of classes. At Drexel, our classes tend to be spread out through the week, with an hour every other day or something like that. Here, it is all three hours at once, and once a week. That was rough getting used to, because I was not used to long classes! I also have a Friday evening class at 4-7, which I would NEVER take at Drexel normally.

Grading here is also confusing, because there really aren't any syllabus in the beginning of the term telling you exactly what you will be graded on. For example, in my one class, I have absolutely no idea what we are graded on and if we even have an exam. I guess I will be surprised at the end. The other classes are a bit wishy-washy, with teachers changing their minds every other week. In one class, my teacher changes every other week so thats even more confusing.

But overall, I really enjoy my classes here. I feel like I am truly learning International Business if anything, and especially how Europeans view American businesses (the view is generally positive). My French Civilization class feels like it is meant for high schoolers, but it is interesting learning about French culture (first class we talked about certain French stereotypes).

Q: What is your apartment like?

A: I wish I could say I lived in a studio apartment in the middle of Paris with nice Parisian windows. I wish. My apartment is nice enough, just the right size for once person, with a bedroom bathroom and mini kitchen. I have plenty of space but it is very blah. Not much color, and no Parisian windows. The view is not too bad, I can see some of the buildings of La Defense in the background behind all the apartment buildings, and I have a view of a park and the street. So, I can't complain! I have a bit more room here then I had in the sorority house back home :) I also live in the same apartment building with a lot of other Erasmus students, so we all are able to hang out together pretty easily.

Since that's a really long blog post, I will end it for now, but I will do another Q&A in a few weeks! Send me some more questions that you want answered in the blog :) For now, back to class! 3 hour afternoon of Operations Management, woohoo...

Bonne Journee!
Feldy