Going Postal

Greetings and Salutations!

Yesterday, something happened that I have been avoiding since day one of arriving in France. Let me give a little background info.

Because we are staying in France for over 3 months, we are all required to fill out a form called "OFII." We were all informed of this over the summer, and we were told it was very important. At some point we learned that it had to be submitted before the 3 month mark of living in France. The form asks for your address and how long you'll be in France. After the OFII office receives the form they contact you with a doctor's appointment that you must attend. Along with the form you are supposed to include a copy of your passport ID page and a copy of the student visa page of your passport. Given that this process involves making copies at a copy center, filling out a form in French, going to the post office, the looming mysterious doctor's appointment, and that we had a whole 3 months to do it, naturally all of us put it off.

We started asking each other what would happen if we just didn't do it. None of our program heads had said anything to us about the form since the first week we arrived. Somehow it circulated that if we just didn't do it, France could keep us from ever entering the country again. Another answer that circulated was that France wouldn't let us leave. "Not let us leave?" someone would ask,"wouldn't they want to kick us out?" It goes without saying that there was much confusion surrounding the whole process.

I already had copies of my passport, but the thing that kept me from touching the form was the dreaded trip to the post office. My 2 hour ordeal at the post office in Bolivia had me not wanting to ever enter a foreign post office ever again. EVER. AGAIN.

Mail piled up, and this weekend I found myself with my sublet contract for winter quarter, 6 post cards, and my OFII form all needing to be mailed.

Photo Courtesy of: L'Express.fr

So, after class, I walked into La Banque Postale. The man was very nice and helpful, but I didn't have cash and my card wouldn't accept the low 87 cents charge. I apologized and packed up all of my documents and left. Near my dorm I found my atm, withdrew cash, and crossed the street to a different Banque Postale. This one was much bigger. I walked up to a lady and asked her if she spoke english (we haven't learned post office vocab). In french she said "a little." I pulled out my documents and said I needed to send them but I needed 6 stamps. She brought me over to a machine, typed in something, pointed to the screen, and started to walk away. The screen said I owed 6 Euro. "Excuse me," I said, "this says I owe 6 Euro for 6 stamps..?" "Oui," she said. I sighed and thought, maybe the man from the first post office didn't know I was sending these to the U.S..so maybe the stamps (which look like normal stamps) he had pulled out were only domestic.

I pulled out a ten dollar bill from my wallet and realized there was no place to put in cash. I stood there staring at the machine trying to figure out what I was expected to do, and how I was expected to pay. Finally, a young woman behind me pointed to the cash to change machine next to me. I got ten dollars in change, and paid the machine with coins. This is my first observation of inefficiency in the French post office. After I got my stamps (which look like long rectangular labels and not like stamps at all) I realized that they were way too big and would cover my writing. I stood there feeling like the subject of one of those photos where one person is standing still and there is a blur of motion around them. I literally stood in one spot for 5 minutes.

The woman who I'd first spoken with was running around the post office hoping from desk to desk. There were several different counters but none of the signs had been translated to english, and the words weren't close enough to english for me to figure out. I had my postcards, my OFII form, my passport copies, and my sublet contract in one hand, and my weird looking large stamps in the other. Every time I tried to stop the woman and ask or pantomime a question, she'd respond to me in french, point in no particular direction, and then hurry away.

Finally I found an employee who spoke english. She actually walked with me through the process of getting done what I needed to get done. We solved the stamp problem by folding them over the edge of the postcards.

Since mom stubbornly refuses to take some things back for me like all the other parents, I know I'll need to ship a ton of stuff back home before the program is over. But the last place I want to go back to is to La Banque Postale.

Put Your Hands Together to Welcome "Brain Food" to the Blog!

Phew! Third post of the day!!

Hey, it's me again! I just wanted to direct your attention to a new addition to the blog. If you look to your right you'll see a section labeled "Brain Food." In this section I will put things I think are worth glancing at, whether they be hilarious or slightly more serious finds. I want to try to keep it light. I'll keep a few articles listed at a time and refresh them once every couple of weeks.

That is all!

-Hillary

Metro Maniac

Hey guys!

I have a weird story to tell you, I know I just updated with a post on Lisbon but I'm splitting these up because they have very different tones.

Today I had French for 2 hours and then public health for 5 hours (it was scheduled to be 7 hours). In French something really shocking happened. A woman came in to tell us that my French teacher was on the metro and something happened with the metro but that she'd be here soon and we should wait in the classroom for her. We didn't think much of it because she's always telling us that she has to plan way ahead to get to class on time because of the strikes, and she's always worried that she's going to be late one day. She came in about 8 minutes late sobbing. We all went completely silent and she mumbled that she might not be able to teach today. We waited, and she said she was attacked on the metro. We frantically muttered that we didn't need to have class, or that we could do independent study. A few people kept asking if she needed anything, but she just continued taking big gulps of air and shakily reaching for the class folder from her backpack.

Now, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but sometimes I have extremely inappropriate reactions to grave situations that have been sprung upon me suddenly like that. When I had that car accident in high school (when I was doing donuts in the street, as dad always says) I laughed before I cried. So this whole time I'm concentrating really hard on not laughing, and a smile is forcing its way onto my face. I had to put my hand over my mouth to control myself. There's a reason for this and its very normal, psychologists say it's because we don't know how to process sudden traumas..or something like that. Anyway I was struggling between wanting to condole her but also trying to restrain myself from being really inappropriate. Finally she asked for us to give her 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes were up she started class as usual. I'm so grateful that she didn't call on me first to answer her question in french because I would've stared at her with my mouth hanging open, still trying to process the abrupt shift we had just made.

After class she told us what happened. Apparently the metro was really crowded this morning and some woman was trying to get on. My teacher was standing in her way but she couldn't move because it was so tight, and there was a stroller behind her. The woman made it on but cussed her out throughout the entire metro ride. She said the woman almost hit her! She ended up asking a man to walk with her out of the station and then she stood with some police for a few minutes.

How crazy is that!!?? We told her that anyone would've been upset after that and she shouldn't be embarrassed. At first I wondered why she hadn't pulled herself together in the bathroom before walking into class, but then after talking with some people we decided that maybe she had been ok before walking into class, but upon seeing us her adrenaline subsided and she just broke down.

It's getting colder but the crazies aren't hibernating!

Love,

Hillary

Portugal Ch.2: Lazing in Lisbon

Hola Lovers!!

Or should I say, "Bonjour!" This is chapter 2 of my trip to Portugal.

I left something out of my last post about Porto! After dinner and ice cream, we returned to our hostel and got ready for bed. We were staying in a room of 4 but so far we hadn't seen our roommates. We'd guessed that it was a guy and a girl because one of the beds was not made and sort of messy, and the other one was made and rather neat. As we were journaling, our roomies came in. It was in fact a guy and a girl. After a brief introduction I realized that we had made the wrong conclusion. They were both very talkative and outgoing, but I decided we were wrong based on two things.

A) The girl was put together and even had a cardigan on, but in a devil-may-care way. She talked about only getting 2 hours of sleep before her flight that morning because she'd been out until 6 am in Barcelona (where she's studying abroad).

B) The guy was gay. And I'm not stereotyping here. He was very put together in a neat way and a tad more polite. (Not that she was rude! She just abandoned the formalities in meeting new people..which was actually really refreshing.)

We chatted with them for awhile. Both are juniors at Middlebury in Vermont. When I heard this I almost jumped up and shouted with joy. You see, Middlebury is the birthplace of college quidditch. They started it a few years ago and college quidditch has grown immensly. Maybe I'll do a post on college quidditch sometime soon and explain how it works. Anyway, to me they might as well have told me they went to Hogwarts. I didn't hesitate to convey to them the sheer joy of being in their presence. They agreed with me and thought the quidditch team at Middlebury was really cool. We talked with them for awhile until they left to find a bar or a club. Before they walked out we asked which bed belonged to which person, and I was right. He had the neat bed and she had the messy one.

The next morning we caught a 3 and a half our train to Lisbon. We almost got off at the wrong stop in some random little town because we couldn't understand the announcements for each station and there was no schedule or list of stops to reference. Eventually a middle aged man picked up on our panic and he told us the Lisbon stop was next, but we wanted the second Lisbon stop because it was in the city center.

The tourism office at the train station was closed. I called the hostel to find out where to go, and he told us to take a bus. We found the right bus and thankfully got off at the right stop (there was no sign to indicate which stop it was) and eventually found our hostel. Our hostel was SWEET. When we got there an older couple was trying to make a reservation, but there were no vacancies. It's always weird when people over 30 are in a hostel, but they are always there. I don't want to be in hostels after 30, let me tell you. But they are fun now! There are always tons of people my age, and lots of solo travelers doing the "around the world" vacation that so many 28 year olds do after their "I'm done with grad school/my job sucks" crisis. These people are anxious to meet others and plan activities during the time that their itineraries overlap. Also, lots of hostels are really cool looking and most of the ones I've stayed in are very clean, super trendy, and have a very helpful staff. I took some pictures of this one. I forgot to take a picture of the lounge, but there was a huge tv in the wall playing CNN and below it was a queen size bed with a sign that read: "Make Love, Not War."

On the wall in the staircase (each floor had a different graphic):

On the wall on my floor between the showers and the rooms:
My room. Notice that there are 3 bunk beds lined up in a row, and the bottom beds have a curtain for privacy:
The key for this hostel looked like a coiled key-chain that goes around your wrist, and it had a tiny circle, the shape of a watch face that was an electronic key. That circle opened the front door, the room door, and your specific under-bed drawer by placing it on an electronic sensor. The under-bed drawers were big enough to fit my suitcase and still have extra space. So cool!!

Each bed had its own reading light, a tiny shelf, and an outlet. The only main light in the room was the backlight to the gray cityscape on the wall. So turning on the light doesn't disturb everyone because it isn't a strong light.

Peep this bathroom sign:
After checking out the hostel we wandered through a market at the main plaza and then sat by the sea shore for awhile.

This mass of fish was very mysterious. They were all swimming toward a lowered wall and not making much progress. Seagulls were dipping down attempting to pick one up but these fish were way too big for them. A friend from Northwestern who saw my this picture on my facebook told me that the fish were doing the same thing when he was in Lisbon last year...

Thus ends chapter 2!

To be continued...

Hillary

Portugal Ch.1: Porto

Hey everyone!

Halloween is over and thus I am allowing myself to think about Christmas. Only 7 more weeks!! There better be snow when I get back to Chi City. Before you judge-I've improved over the last couple of years- I used to start listening to Christmas songs once August hit.

This is the first chapter on my week in Portugal.

We left before the sun rose on Friday morning and got to Portugal a few hours later. Our first stop was Porto, in the northernmost part of Portugal. After stopping by the tourism office and dropping our bags off at the hostel we set out to visit one of the many wine cellars in Porto. We chose to walk so that we could explore the town a bit.

Many of the buildings were decorated with beautiful tile designs. While many of the buildings were beautiful, they were also old and not kept up very well. Many of the streets closer to the river were very narrow and could only be reached on foot. Clothes-lines hung everywhere and all of the houses had orange tiled roofs.

This was the beautiful bridge that we walked over. We thought it would take us to the river's edge, but instead it runs completely over the river. To reach the river we snaked down streets lined with buildings so tall that we couldn't see where we were going. But we eventually reached the wine cellars!

We stopped for lunch before venturing down to the cellars. In the tiny café we experienced our first real run in with the portuguese language barrier. There was no menu. Menus are my friend in foreign countries. I can use them to point at what I want rather than look super dumb. So I ended up using spanish to order the same thing some other woman had. It was EXACTLY like the food in Bolivia. Over the course of the week I discovered that I do not like Portuguese food. We ate fried fish, cabbage, and french fries. I found myself avoiding the cabbage because I was reverting to my habits in Bolivia. The locals in the restaurant all seemed to know each other. I felt like I was in Greece or Italy. All the old ladies were yelling to each other. Then this lady sitting next to us decided she should include us, and she said something to me in her attempt at spanish that I took to mean "there's a cathedral over there." I looked out the window and, alas, there was a cathedral! I'd seen the church already though but I politely said "ohh.. sí..muy linda." (Oh..yes...very pretty). She kept looking at me and smiling and nodding. She said something else then, so instead of trying to understand her I asked in spanish how old the church was. She didn't understand me. The lady behind her did, and she interrupted and translated for me in Portuguese. Then the lady I'd originally been talking to yelled to another woman behind me, asking her how old the church was. That lady speculated, and then the translator lady corrected her guess. Eventually I learned it was built sometime in the 1400s. I think. In all this spanish speaking, french words were slipping out of my mouth. Where "sí" and "gracias" used to be my reflex, it is now "oui" and "merci." That first day I asked someone how to say "thank you" and "hello" in Portuguese. We learned that those translate to "obrigada/o" and "óla" or "bom día."

We took a tour and learned about Port Wine, which is different from table wine. Port Wine has a higher alcohol content and is much sweeter. It comes in tawny, ruby, rosé, and white. We also learned that the barrels (made of oak) that are used to age the wines are given over to whisky makers after around 60 years, and the residue from the wine in the barrels gives whisky it's color.
The tour ended with a taste of ruby and tawny Port Wine. Jennie and I decided we... do not care for Port Wine. It was so sweet!! It literally tasted like it contained syrup.

After walking around some more, we went back to the hostel and I took a much needed nap. I'd gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before, and it wasn't a restful sleep either; I kept dreaming about missing my flight. At dinner the waiter brought over a basket of bread (pão) and some appetizers. We thought that was very nice and we each ate a piece of bread and some of the appetizers. We'd been duped. They showed up on our bill later!! We couldn't exactly protest because A) we didn't speak portuguese and we'd already had trouble communicating to the waiter, and B) we ate the food. They even charged for the bread! We read the next day in a travel book that 50% of the time a restaurant in Portugal will charge for bread. We didn't touch the free bread the rest of the trip, and the next day at lunch when a waiter tried to bring us food, I told him we didn't want to pay for it so he took it away. Anyway, I had wonderful gelato after dinner. They had a flavor that was chocolate with raspberry flavoring! It was divine.

We left the next day for Lisbon. The Lisbon leg of the journey was really awesome, and I'll have more on that later!

Love,

Hillary