margaine
04-25-2011, 10:29 AM
no pictures yet! but I promise there will eventually be a small selection of the enormous amount of pictures I have. on that note - anyone have any suggestions aside from photobucket for hosting pictures online? Photobucket is really annoying, and it makes me not want to post pictures because it's too slow.
Things I've learned living in southern France for the past 7 months:
- Don't always trust first impressions when dealing with another culture - one of the teachers who I initially thought would be one of my role models and possible friends turned out to be one of my least favorite people, and one of the teachers with whom I had kind-of a bad start and who I thought would be really difficult to work with turned out to be someone I feel rather close to
- The French (and according to my Italian roommate, Europeans in general, though others on the forum can correct as necessary) are really obsessive about paperwork. And I mean literal pieces of paper. It was really a new experience for me.
- I've learned more words and phrases than I can possibly count in French. Hopefully I won't forget them all. Unfortunately, I still make crappy grammatical errors.
- I've learned so much about the culture of Southern France - Petanque and rugby*, old men sitting in cafes (sounds poetic, but it's annoying when you are a young woman and don't really fancy being the only woman sitting in the cafe), the annoying fact that everything is closed between 12-3 every day, outdoor markets every week, Roman ruins and fortified cities, goat cheese, port cities with boats from across the Mediterranean, and on and on . .
*note absence of soccer/football - people are rather obsessive about watching football matches on TV, but the sport that is actually played on a regular organized basis in my immediate region is rugby
Places I saw:
- France: Paris, Toulouse, Avignon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice and a bunch of smaller towns and cities that all had pretty interesting things in them
- Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome and the Vatican
- UK: northern Wales, Liverpool, and London
- Monaco
- Barcelona
- Reykjavik and surrounding natural sights
quite a lot! but not nearly enough! there is so much more I wanted to see! Not least of all the current homes of several forum members! ;) maybe next time!
Things I've learned living in southern France for the past 7 months:
- Don't always trust first impressions when dealing with another culture - one of the teachers who I initially thought would be one of my role models and possible friends turned out to be one of my least favorite people, and one of the teachers with whom I had kind-of a bad start and who I thought would be really difficult to work with turned out to be someone I feel rather close to
- The French (and according to my Italian roommate, Europeans in general, though others on the forum can correct as necessary) are really obsessive about paperwork. And I mean literal pieces of paper. It was really a new experience for me.
- I've learned more words and phrases than I can possibly count in French. Hopefully I won't forget them all. Unfortunately, I still make crappy grammatical errors.
- I've learned so much about the culture of Southern France - Petanque and rugby*, old men sitting in cafes (sounds poetic, but it's annoying when you are a young woman and don't really fancy being the only woman sitting in the cafe), the annoying fact that everything is closed between 12-3 every day, outdoor markets every week, Roman ruins and fortified cities, goat cheese, port cities with boats from across the Mediterranean, and on and on . .
*note absence of soccer/football - people are rather obsessive about watching football matches on TV, but the sport that is actually played on a regular organized basis in my immediate region is rugby
Places I saw:
- France: Paris, Toulouse, Avignon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice and a bunch of smaller towns and cities that all had pretty interesting things in them
- Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome and the Vatican
- UK: northern Wales, Liverpool, and London
- Monaco
- Barcelona
- Reykjavik and surrounding natural sights
quite a lot! but not nearly enough! there is so much more I wanted to see! Not least of all the current homes of several forum members! ;) maybe next time!