Grenoble
I woke up in a sweat. No nightmares, just the heat wave. The French call it the Canicule, which I think sounds really menacing and a lot more accurate emotionally. I decided as I drank my boiling hot coffee this morning that if I were to write a memoir about my time here, it would have to be called “nothing here is ever cold.” Even the iced coffee is warm to some degree.
Our question of the day in Louise’s class was whether or not we thought it was possible to travel without money. In my own opinion, no it is not possible. I don’t think I would feel secure enough to couch surf especially if I didn’t know the language in another country. I certainly wouldn’t want to sleep in parks or beg for money. However, it seems much more feasible for men who don’t have to worry about harassment from strangers on the street.
In art, we finally got to move on from comic books. Instead, we talked about film. The project for the day was to go around and do a poll on an assigned question. My question was “have you fallen asleep during a movie before?”. 65% of people said yes. After we finished presenting our results, we watched a video on the Cannes film festival. I was frustrated because other students in the class refuse to speak French during class. They speak in English directly to the professor. I think that is such a waste of the experience. It irritates me because we are not allowed to do that in language classes at UM and I would like to be held to a higher standard while I am in the country.
After Ryan’s class a group of us headed back to the campus store. I got myself a t-shirt and bunch of cool stickers for people. I’m excited to hand them out.
Well, it was time to get to work on our final project. Ruby and I went over to the French Coffee Shop to work. I got a smoothie and surprise, surprise it was NOT cold. I just really really crave an iced coffee. Just coffee and ice. It is not that hard France. Our project is focusing on the registers of familiarity that words concerning identity in France. We’ll be doing interviews for our paper over the weekend.
Dinner is always my favorite part of the day. Janine always calls me to the kitchen from down the hall, “Marie?” I say, “Oui?” and she says, “À table!” It’s very cute. Tonight we had sweet melon and cheese for our first plate, gnocchi with tomato sauce for the second, a creamy Italian cheese that followed, and we finished with some cherries.
As we ate we talked about the market for fake designer items in Italy and the strict rules that Italy is imposing to stamp out the venders of those products. We talked about car production in the US decreasing as plants move to Mexico. We talked about the economic depression in Detroit and Flint caused by the movement of car companies. They asked which car brands are popular and I had to say that French cars are not very desired because people support Ford and GM. Gilbert was able to name each of the five great lakes which was impressive because he’s never seen them. I told them how much I miss the “clime” in the US. I said that every store is freezing, the hospitals, the cars, homes, and offices. They were shocked and asked if people often get sick because they find that air conditioning gives them a sore throat. I thought that was interesting, I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with that. Janine said that the French don’t have air conditioning because they are conscious of the environment and was to save the Earth for later generations. I said that the same attitude doesn’t really exist in the US because many people don’t believe in or understand man made climate change. Both Gilbert and Janine were disappointed and said that Trump was also a huge problem because he was rolling back protections on national forests.
I’m thankful that I can have these conversations with them. This is really the kind of cultural exchange I wanted.
Mary-Est-En-France 