Water Polo

So today was my first day with the water polo team but because it was the first practice of the semester there weren't a lot of people there which was fine with me because I sucked! Ill sum up the practice in one short sentence.

Playing water polo takes more energy than conquering the world!

Enough said but Ill explain why...
First off the rules of water polo mandate that you can only touch the ball with one hand at a time, how lame is that, if I have the capability to tread water and hold the ball above my head with both of my hands I see no reason why I shouldn't be rewarded for my outstanding capabilities! Second no one wears goggles in water polo so by the end of the match all of the lights have amazing halos and you look like you have been smoking weed for the past few hours because your eyes are so blood shot. And finally swimming back and forth across the pool (we played the width of the pool not the length, THANK GOD!) while trying to see where everyone else is and keep your head above the water is exhausting. And that doesnt even include the constant changing of directions, I mean you think just swimming back and forth would be enough but trying to maneuver your body quickly in the water in an upright position is not as easy as the Olympians make it look!
Nevertheless I had a great time and plan on continuing my weekly masochistic ritual of water polo.

Classes and French Bureaucracy

As most of you know I was supposed to take 2 psychology classes at Lyon 2 (I am enrolled at Lyon 3 but through an agreement between the universities Im allowed to take 2 classes at other Lyon universities) and I will be able to but to get to this point was a mess. I started off in Arizona making sure that it would all be ok, which I got the ok from the schools in France weeks after several emails. I arrived and looked at maps seeing where the two universities are located and such which is really confusing because each university has 2 campuses but they are not titled as main or primary campus or anything that would be helpful to someone who doesnt know that city or universities. But anyway I talked to the adviser for the international students at Lyon 3 and was told to go to the closer Lyon 2 campus (on the Rhone and right next to Lyon 3 other campus) which I thought was great because its only about 10 min on the But when I got there and asked where the international office was NO ONE knew so instead of telling me they didnt know they sent me all over the campus and finally to the wrong room, which I didnt find out was the wrong room because it was closed that day. So I went back the next day to that room and spoke with the woman there who sent me to the correct place. I arrived at the guys office (who I for sure thought was going to be a girl from his name Emmanuel) and he told me that the classes were offered at the other Lyon 2 campus and that I would have to go there to get the livret du cours (book of classes) from some lady who I for sure thought was going to be a man (francoise). So I spoke with her (after an hour and a half journey from my house!!) and she told me that she was not the right person to speak with about this but that she would be able to give us the livret du cours. So we (me and the other psych student from UA) spoke with her and she told us some of the most useless information ever but I did find out that classes at Lyon 2 are taught from the Freudian perspective which has been discredited in a way in the states and is taught as history and not the contemporary way of thinking. Woo! And this is where the story gets good, the two classes together only come to 4 ECT (european credit system) credits which means that I will receive 2 credits for the classes back at UA so I will have to go BEG the professors to both give me an extra credit point for their class so I can at least get 1 class taken care of over here. So I now have to take a correspondence course from home which is going to be expensive and I dont even know if I will get enough credits from the two classes here to cover the other class. So Im really hoping that everything will work out and I wont be 1 credit shy of graduating in May which would really really piss me off!
Anyway enough minging! Im still really happy to be here and my French is getting so much better and I can pretty much understand the gist of what people say to me! Which is a huge step forward now I just need to work on speaking which is really difficult. As I am constantly thinking about the correct grammar and pronunciation as well as the fact that even if I do get it all right the French still wont understand me because they hear the accent first and then what Im trying to say!

Food

Well I have decided/have kind of been forced to give up all of my hesitations to food. Its literally impossible not to ham or pork products here so that one went out the door, pretty much the first week because hunger took over and well lets just say it won. But it did make me really sick the first time I ate pork and the second time I had a stomach as well, and not just because of the psychological stresses of eating something I have avoided for so long. I still dont really like the taste of lunch meat ham but they have smoked ham here that looks like bacon and tastes like salt which I really like haha.
Im really proud of myself because I have only not eaten one thing that was put in front of me! It was this hors d'oeuvre (which in France is served at the table and an appetizer is passed) it was an egg that was soft boiled for two minutes so it looked like it hadnt been cooked at all but apparently it was enough. Then on top of that there was this creamy stuff that had a sort of caviar in it and it was refrigerated all together in a wine glass. It looked really cool in the glass but the overwhelming taste of the ocean was a little too much for me and after 2 bites I couldnt do it anymore and had to stop eating. I felt really bad because Im thinking that it was pretty expensive to make but I just couldnt find it in myself to eat it.
Oh and last night I had gizzards!!! I was really really concerned about this because I have this image of the sac that dad would pull out of the chicken or turkey and eat when they are all slimy and nasty looking. So apparently the concern was apparent on my face because my the mom asked what the problem was and I said that I didnt think I would like them but that I would try them. So anyway she made half of what she was planning because I didnt know if I was going to eat them...not my most brilliant moment. But I tried them and they are actually really good! She made them a lot differently than I remember dad eating, she pan seared them so they were cripsy and you have them in a salad with tomotoes, dijon vinaigrette and walnuts. And then we had pasta with butter so it was a really nice dinner.
As I ramble about food, last Sunday it was the mom's birthday so she had her neice, nephew and their two children over as well as one other nephew who is my age. I made salse and guacamole which were a big hit, esp the guac. Then we had boeuf bourguignon with rice which was amazing and two types of French cakes, it was great! But we started the lunch off at 11:30 (a little early I thought) but we didnt eat until 1 because we were drinking Scotch and Pineau (some French wine-ish stuff that is really sweet and really strong) not together though. But we were just drinking with mostly Scotch and a splash of coke, it was an adventure and this was before lunch and I hadnt eaten so I got tipsy pretty quickly. But with lunch we had two more bottles of wine between a bunch of us which wasnt that much but there was also wine in the food. And then after lunch we went and had coffee in the salon and had more dessert! All of this took about 5-6 hours because the guests didnt leave until 5:30 but that was with a lot of chatting afterward. It was amazingly long but really nice because we got to chat so much but I was SO tired afterward.

French house

Oh here are pictures of the outside of my house in France and my room/bathroom. The bathroom is in a door that looks like a closet and I think it used to be one because there is an identical set of doors on the other side of the wall and I believe its about the same size. Either way its big enough and really nice to have my own shower because the rest of the family shares a bathroom! Such luxury I have. The circular thing in front of the house is a pool but now its more like an ice skating rink.
The building to the left is the house and the building straight ahead are the garages. Its hard to see the separation in the buildings and Ill try to post a better picture soon but its the best I have right now. For the garages, the one on the far right used to be used to dye clothes and there is a huge concrete tub and chimney for heating the water and everything. The middle garage used to be the horse stable and I believe the one on the far left used to be for all the saddles and riding equipment. Then above the garages are apartments that are connected to the house by a walkway that goes through Gregoire's room, which I know means nothing to you but oh well, and Im assuming used to be the servants quarters. The house was built in the late 1800's and the garage was built in the 1600's and served a massive mansion that was torn down.
Oh just an aside, a toilet (a modern one) froze the other night in the garage and caused a water line to burst upstairs so Wednesday we spent the afternoon hauling everything out of the garage and assessing the damage. Florence (the mom) has some amazing old furniture in the garages and luckily nothing was damaged so that was good but it was so cold! Fortunately we just had to throw out some old toys that the boys dont play with anymore and some boxes but everything else was spared.

International Commencement Party host by Lyon 3

So last night was an amazing night out. Lyon 3 (my university) hosted the party at a private club, sounds spendy and luxurious but it definitely wasn't! There was a free coat check and the first drink was free but it was crappy beer or horrible sangria (well free as in I paid 6euro to get in). Anyway the night took a while to get going because it was the first mixing of the SELF (English only classes) and DEUF (French only classes) students so a lot of people didnt know each other and there are a lot more SELF students than DEUF. But the night eventually got going and everyone was dancing and it was really nice because you knew that everyone there was from the same university and in the same position of not really knowing that many people. It was also nice to know that there werent any creepers and all the music reflected the fact that we were from all over the world.
On the way home after the club was slowing down at 3:30, apparently an early night in France we decided to walk to a friends apartment since ALL of the public transports STOPS at 1am. How that makes sense I will never understand but we walked for at least 2-3 miles. And the girls, Alice and Judit were talking and walking so slow so it took forever. After a good hour and a half of walking we finally stopped at a metro stop because it was going to open in 15 minutes. So I took the metro to Gorge de Loup (my metro stop) and found that my bus didnt come for another 35 minutes and seeing how it was 5:23 in the morning and I was freezing I didnt really want to wait. So I hopped on another bus that has one similar stop to my bus but because the scrolling sign telling us where we were was broken and there obviously werent that many people waiting for the bus it didnt take very long and I missed the stop. So I had to walk back to where I was supposed to stop and then up the hill to the house so I finally got home a little before 6am and went straight to bed. And then Gregoire woke me up at 1:30pm while he was singing because he thought he was alone in the house. Hilarious
Oh and to add to the night when the metro opened I turned around on the stairs inside the station and grabbed the handrail which was still wet with a horrid orange paint. There werent any signs or anything I was so upset because I thought I had ruined my leather gloves (well dad's leather gloves, thanks for letting me borrow them!) but luckily I was able to get it all off as well as off the sleeve of my jacket. ugh pas bon chance!

First real post

Lyon is amazing Im so happy to be here. Speaking French has been much more difficult than I originally anticipated but Im getting the hang of it and I can pretty much understand what people are saying. I have a lot of work to do to become fluent, particularly with my grammar but that will hopefully come soon. To help Im reading, which has turned into translating because I dont know a lot of the words, a childrens book called Les Memoires des Anes ( Memoires of a Donkey). Its supposed to be for children under 10 but its really difficult for me and there have been conjugations in form that I didnt previously know.
I went to Vieux Lyon (old Lyon) with the mother of the family Im living with and its so beautiful. There was a bit of haze so the pictures didnt turn out that well but it was absolutely amazing. In the old part there are Tabbules (sp?) basically they are these hidden pathways through the buildings that connect parallel streets because the streets were so long. It was crazy, there were all these doors that just look like and other entrance to a building but they open and inside there is a walkway and then a courtyard and another walkway and viola youre on another street. The other amazing thing about it is that they are all decorated differently and some are very ornate and cathedral like.
I also got to try some real French desserts from a Patisserie and they were so good and crepes from a guy on the street with a cart! It was delicious, all the food so far has been except for one pumpking dish that I didnt like and another one that was a half cooked egg is a wine glass with creme fraise and a type of caviar that we dont have on top. Not my favorite! It was way too salty for me and the texture and popping of the caviar was not something that I really enjoyed. And I hadnt even gotten to the half cooked egg!!!!
Im going to post some pictures and in the next few days Ill take pictures of my room and the house.

First week

hey all so this is my first post and I know not that exciting but Im running out the door to buy groceries for an international potluck tonight with some of the other international students before we go out for drinks and to explore the nightlife Lyon has to offer. Hope this works