Bonjour,

Alright so I’ll pick up where I left off.  The next city we visited was Prague in the Czech Republic.  It was an absolutely beautiful city with very old, historic buildings and a lot of pretty colours.  We spent a lot of time in the Old Town Centre which was always quite busy especially around the time the Astronomical clock went off each hour and a man played a little trumpet song.  We explored the castle and the Czech senate and walked across the famous bridge filled with artists and musicians.

From Prague we took a night train to Krakow, Poland.  The night train was a different experience as it was quite small, with six of us crammed into a tiny 6 bunk sleeper.  We arrived in Krakow at an difficult time in the country’s history, as the President had just died in a plane crash.  The streets were lined with Polish flags donning a black ribbon for mourning.  We went and visited Auschwitz and Birkenau which was an extremely moving and interesting experience.  We visited the old Jewish quarters and ate perogies at a local pub.

Next was Vienna where only spent one day.  It is a very beautiful and clean city with lots of amazing statues and palaces.  We spent most of the day at the Schronbrunn palace, visiting the gardens.  From Vienna we hit Munich, Germany which was swarming with French people as there was a soccer game between Via Munich and Lyon.  We visited a famous brewery called the Hofbrauhaus.  It was very Bavarian with massive beers and sausage everywhere.  Finally we ended the trip in Strasbourg, France.  Strasbourg is a nice city in the North of France which is home to the European Parliament.  After two weeks of non-stop travelling we were  completely shattered and returned to Toulouse, tired but satisfied with all that we had seen.

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour,

Alright, so I’ve just returned back to Toulouse after 14 days of travelling around Europe!  It was amazing, my friends and I bought eurorail passes which allowed us to have 10 travel days in 22 days, so we headed off on the 9th of April and returned the 24th.

We started the journey in Paris! It was my first time going and I have to say that everyone should go there once in there lives.  It’s amazing, especially the first time you see the Eiffel tower because it is so iconic and when you get there it actually makes it real.  We also saw the Sacre Coeur or in English, the devotion to the physical heart of Jesus.  We checked out Moulin Rouge and the cafe where the famous French movie Amelie was filmed.  We visited the Napoleon cour and the Louvre pyramid, saw Notre Dame, and walked down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe!!!

From Paris, we headed off to Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  It was about a four hour train ride and when we arrived in Amsterdam the first thing I noticed was all the bikes.  There are bicycles everywhere, later I heard there’s something like 2 bikes to everyone one person.  In Amsterdam we saw Anne Frank’s house, the Heineken museum, Vondelpark, Town Hall, the canal and loads of pretty houses and buildings.

From Amsterdam it was off to Berlin, which was a little cold when we first arrived!  We started our stay in Berlin with a sausage of course then we took a little pub crawl, visiting very authentic German pubs.  We took a tour bus guide through the city and saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag building, the Holocaust memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, a palace, The Berlinerdome, and the East Side Gallery.  The East Side Gallery is my favourite because it’s the old Berlin wall but now it’s painted by painters from all over the world!! It’s truly amazing.

I went to 5 other cities after which I’ll describe in my next blog entry!!

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour,

Alright, so I decided to write a blog about some of my favourite French phrases that I have learned over my past 7 months in France!

1. “C’est pas grave!” Okay, so this phrase is used quite often by me and my friends.  It is technically an informal phrase, therefore not to be used in formal situations, or with people you don’t really know.  The actual phrase in it’s entirety is “Ce n’est pas grave” but in the oral form, French people drop the first negation.  This roughly translates to “no problem,” “it’s not a big deal” or “it’s all right.”

2. “C’est clair!” So my friend told me about this phrase and she said that whenever you are having a conversation with a French person and you aren’t quite understanding but you’d like to add something, say this.  It roughly translates to “for sure” or “clearly.”  I have found it very helpful for filling conversation space.

3. “Ah bon?” I like this phrase because it’s kind of cute and it is very popular.  It means “oh really?”  It is used quite often in surprising situations.

4. “J’imagine” This is a great phrase for showing some one that you sympathize with them.  It means what you think it does, “I imagine.”  So if someone’s telling you how they went to take the metro, and there was a strike so they had to take a bus to university and it was raining and it was a tough day, you can just throw this phrase in there to say you can imagine how hard it was.  It can also be used as “tu imagine” like can you imagine? Used in cases when you want to reinforce the details of what you’re saying.

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour!

Sorry for the lack of posts, it was due to the crashing of my computer… but 70 euros later my laptop is up and running again so I’m back on the blog.

I’ve decided to dedicate a blog to Toulouse in the Springtime because it is wonderful.  The weather is warming up it’s starting to reach the 20’s!  The city is beautiful right now, and definitely more lively.  People are everywhere enjoying the warm weather.  A particularly popular place is La Garonne, which is a river that runs through Toulouse.  It’s literally packed with all types of people young, old, french, foreign, girls, boys, and dogs.  It’s become one of my favourite past times to picnic by the river with my friends from school.

University is getting a little bit more busy right now as we have some exams coming up next week.  We’ve been learning more intense grammar but I’ve really realized the more grammar you know, the easier it is to speak and the easier it is for people to understand you.  I’ve realized today I have less that 3 months left here, and it’s sad and exciting at the same time, but it’s definitely crunch time which means more conversation, more french films and television and more studying!

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour,

I have some exciting news, I did my first presentation in French on Thursday.  We had to chose an article from a newspaper here, this is really easy because there’s always people everywhere handing out free newspapers, and summarize it, and present it to the class.  Luckily, I found an article about the Olympic games and how they were having trouble with the lack of snow on Cypress mountain.

In order to do my presentation I had to first completely understand my article by reading it over and over, searching all the words I didn’t know, asking French people about certain expressions.  In all, it probably took me about 2 hours to fully understand.  Then, I had to come up with a plan of how I was going to present my article and show it to the class.  It had to consist of a title, an introduction, 3 main points and a conclusion.  That took me about another two hours, due to the fact that I’m extremely indecisive.

Thursday came around and I was ready to start my presentation.  I was extremely nervous just because I had to present in front of the entire class!  But, I did my best everyone understood me very well and liked what I had to say.  They asked me questions which I answered with ease.  My teacher had a few comments about some of my pronunciations, mainly words that end in “tion,” like station (pronounced stay,shien in French) because they are the hardest for me because I tend to pronounce them the English way.  All in all, it went very well, and really encouraged me more, like you CAN do this.

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour,

A couple of weekends ago, I took a trip to Barcelona with my housemate, Natalie and our French friend, Lionel.  We drove up there on the motorway (which you have to pay to drive on in France, weird huh?) through Perpignan.  So we arrived in Barcelona at about 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday.  First thing I noticed was it was crawling with people (mostly tourists).  It’s one of the biggest cities I’ve ever been in and it’s amazing to see that amount of people.

Our first attraction was a Church called Familia Sagrada.  It’s a Church that was started in 1909 and is still being built to this day.  It is estimated to take another 300 years before it is finished so they have a sign outside of it that says 1909 – ??.  It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, with amazing detail and and religious statues.  Form there we decided to take the metro into the centre of the town.  Natalie had warned me that the pickpocketers were bad in Barcelona and especially on the metro, so I zipped up my pockets and thought that would suffice.  We got on the metro, and we were figuring out which stop we needed to get off of and etc. when two guys came to where we were standing and insisted to hold to the side bar we were holding onto.  When the doors opened to get off, Natalie and Lionel went ahead but these two guys kind of pushed and shoved me so I was lagging behind.  While they were pushing and shoving me one of them was starting to unzip my pocket on my coat and trying to grab what was in there.  Luckily, I spotted him and pulled away and he ran off.  Lesson learned: be very careful in Barcelona, don’t put anything extremely valuable in your pockets, wear a money belt, and don’t act like tourists because that’s a welcome sign for pickpocketers.

We then went and had some tapas in a massive fruit market which were delicious.  We continued our day walking along the main street in Barcelona called Las Ramblas.  Basically it’s a massive street with all sorts of entertainers and people dressed up in costumes, souvenir shops, pet shops, flower shops… etc.  We walked all the way down to the water and watched some nearby seagulls and boats in the sea.  After that we headed to the Gaudi buildings.  Antoni Gaudi was an architect who was greatly influenced by nature and is known for his use of curved construction stones, twisted iron sculptures, and organic-like forms.  The buildings were amazing and are one of the biggest attractions in the city.  By that time we had been walking for close to 7 hours.  It was extremely tiring but completely worth visiting one of the most famous and beautiful cities in the world.

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour,

Alright, I’m back in Toulouse after a fabulous 2 week winter break in……. SCOTLAND!  I went to Scotland for the winter break because I have an Aunt and Uncle who just happened to live in St. Andrews, Scotland, and a cousin who’s in Edinburgh.  It was really nice to land in a country that spoke English for a change, but I found I was still doing very French like things like saying “pardon” when I was walking around people and using “merci.”

St. Andrews is a little city about an hour and half outside of Edinburgh.  It is traditionally famous for golf.  It is home to the Old Course which is one of the oldest golf courses in the world and the home of golf.  I visited this course a couple times because my Uncle is a member there.  It’s very beautiful as the 18th hole is next to the main city street and there’s a great view of the Royal & Ancient club house.  On the Old Course, there is also what’s known as the Swilken bridge.  It is a tiny bridge on the 18th hole which was once used by shepherds to lead their sheep over the water.  Now it is extremely famous, and has a signature pose that coincides with it.  If you google Swilken Bridge, you can see what I mean.  This summer St. Andrew’s will host the British Open so again, the streets of St. Andrews will be crawling with famous golfers, celebrities, and avid golf fans.

I spend New Year’s in Edinburgh which is said to be the number one place in the world to spend New Year’s.  It definitely lived up to this claim.  Princes St. (the main street in Edinburgh) was shut down to traffic early in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve day to prepare for the celebrations.  Three stages were set up for live music, as well as massive jumbotrons on either end of the street so people who couldn’t get close to the bands could still enjoy.  In total there was an estimated 90,000 people packed on to Princes St. and the street parallel.  Festivities started at 9:00 p.m. and it was basically a gian street party.  At 12:00 there was a massive countdown and then fireworks went off from the castle which sits on a hill above Princes St.  It was an amazing way to finish 2009 and begin 2010.

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour,

So I’ve been in France for about three months now and the progress I have made is incredible.  I remember when I first tried speaking with my host family, I couldn’t understand anything they said.  Now, I can have conversations with them and I understand mostly everything they are saying (or at least the gist of what they are saying).  I also no longer have trouble at the grocery stores or restaurants, I can confidently order my food.  University is getting easier too, I found that for the first couple of weeks I was a little nervous to speak in front of the class and I had lots of trouble with the exercises, but now I’m feeling more and more confident.  It’s also cool to have friends that you can only speak to in French because it really helps me learn because I’m forced to speak French or else I can’t talk to them.

I think immersing yourself completely in a country that speaks a different language is a great way to learn.  For one, it really makes you practice.  Rather than just studying from books and trying to recite French phrases, you are put in the middle of it.  Everywhere you go you read or hear French.  On the streets you hear the people talk and you can read the French journals, at home you watch the French television and listen to the French radio.  You can also catch onto little phrases that you may have not learned otherwise.  For example, I picked up on the phrase “Je n’arrive pas,” from a French film.  Now, literally translated it means “I am not coming,” but it can also mean “I can’t.”  The things I am learning and how quickly I am learning is incredible and is making this experience well worth it!

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour!

Alright, so I’m close to finishing my third month in France and throughout my time here and I thought I’d tell everyone about two of the most common questions I am asked when people find out I’m from Canada.

Question #1:  So this question comes directly after someone asks either where I’m from or what’s my nationality and they have realized that I can’t speak French fluently and I have an accent.  There has been many variations of it but it’s generally along these terms…

“Oh Canada?  Um… so you don’t live in Quebec?  Is that the only place they speak French?”

I usually response with something like “Nope, I don’t live near Quebec and it’s the only province that is entirely French.”   From here I get some questions like “what’s a province?” or “is Quebec it’s own country?”  I then use an air map of Canada to explain where Saskatchewan is, I point out Quebec in the air and British Columbia in the air and then I explain, Saskatchewan is in the middle.  Only one person, a boy from Colombia, said he knew where Saskatchewan was.  I was impressed.

Question #2:  “Oh so it’s cold where you live?”

I find this question funny because 99% of the people who ask me this question have not experienced cold weather.  For example, people in France bundle up when it’s 10 above 0, and I’m walking around in a t-shirt.  It’s especially funny for me to talk with the Australian girl who’s in my class about weather.  One time it was a little chilly she came up to me and was like “What do you think the temperature is right now?  Is it below zero?”  It was probably about 15 degrees so I told her that.  She could not believe it, she thought for sure it had to be close to zero.  Poor girl would not survive in Saskatchewan. I usually tell people that it gets to minus 30, sometimes minus 40 in the Winter.  One time a guy from Chile (Pablo) said, “Oh so if it’s minus 30 you must not leave your house then?” I then explained to him that we do have to leave our houses and keep living if it’s cold and I also mentioned things like plugging in your car to make sure it starts and covering your face so you don’t get frost bite.  Pablo gave me a horrified expression and said…”you must be crazy!”

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy

Bonjour!

Alright, so I finally started University today!  I woke up and took the metro down to the Université de Mirail, the University for languages and social sciences, and went to class.  I started out in year one because we were put into 5 groups ranging from year one to five based on our placement test scores.  However, because I took the course at Alliance Francaise I found that year one was a little bit repetitive so I spoke to my teacher and she looked at some of my French writing skills and I was moved into year two!

My class is once again full of different nationalities.  We discovered each other’s nationalities by playing a question game.  For example, people would ask (in French of course) different questions to find out certain things about the country you were from.  The Australian girl was asked if her country was famous for it’s wildlife and if her country had animals that hopped.  I guess I must look Canadian because the girl from Iran knew right off the bat.  She asked me if my country was cold, and then if the temperature in my country could get to minus 40, when I answered yes to this question there were actually gasps of horror.  Then someone else asked if there was more than one official language and someone else asked if you could ski in my country and if there was snow and then it was pretty much a given.  It was a fun game to play to get to know everyone and work on French skills.  In my class there are people from China, Japan, Syria, Russia, Chechnya, Iran, Brazil, Australia, Colombia, Chile and Poland.

Other than class my day wasn’t that eventful.  However, I feel it necessary to share with you the extremely odd sight I witnessed while eating lunch.  I was sitting on the grass in the University courtyard eating a baguette, and a guy was riding a horse and pulling another guy behind the horse on a snowboard type thing.  I have no idea why this was happening, and I found it shocking that there was a live horse on the University campus, but who am I to judge…

With Nothing Toulouse,

Amy