Two weeks and on :)

I’ve been here for two weeks now. I’m now at the point where I can no longer think of this as a vacation. I’m starting school and learning just how much work is going to be ahead of me.

School is a lot different here. At Mac, we take 5 courses per semester. Thats normal. Here you take as many courses as add up to 60 credits for the whole year! So I have two full year courses, plus six courses per semester. It’s a little overwhelming. Also at mac, you may go to one course three or four times per week, where here you go once a week. I have about the same amount of hours of class as at home, but a whole lot more work to do on my own time. I have to keep up with 8 different subjects!

Already though things have been made a little bit easier for us as international students. We aren’t expected (in most classes) to do the exact same work as the French students are, we are allowed to tweak our assignments, and in some cases even skip the final exam!

I haven’t attended all of my class yet, as they started on Wednesday, but hopefully more profs will feel pity towards us students struggling to not only learn French, but trying to keep up in completely French classes integrated with mostly all French students.

My most exciting class is English Translation J It’s still taught in French, but I get to translate from French to English, which will give me a little bit of an advantage I hope. Here are my classes for the year:

French Grammar (full year)
French Culture (full year)
Literature of the middle ages
Literature of the 17th century
Literature of the 18th Century
Literature of the 18th Century (again :s)
Literature of the 20th Century
English Translation

French Grammar (cont’d)
French Culture (cont’d)
Literature of the 16th Century
Literature of the 19th Century
Literature of the 20th Century (again)
Literature of the 19th Century (again)
Litterature of the 17th Century (again)
Geography of France

It’s difficult to choose the right courses here, because not only must I make the courses work for me here, but I also have to keep into consideration how they will transfer back to McMaster. Sometimes I have to take two similar courses (both 18th cent lit courses) to add up to one course for McMaster. But i think i’ve finally figured it out to the best of my abilities for the year. Now hopefully the second term schedule will work out in my favour as well, but I have awhile before I have to worry about that.

Also at the two week mark, I’ve noticed some VERY very French behaivoir:

1) Everyone smokes, everywhere all the time. It’s forbidden inside now like home, but it still happens

2) The French are really really good a parallel parking.

3) In the metro stations they play 80’s English pop music all day long

4) The fashion really isn’t that good here :s Some people are impeccably well dressed, while others...... are not. The latest fashion is a skirt like thing that just all of a sudden has foot holes at the bottom. It’s odd and something i don’t think i’ll be conforming to.

5) People in general are very friendly here, and the people who work in the stores we go to don’t mind helping us, and putting up with our awful French. They’re usually excited to learn that We’re Canadians coming here to improve our French

We had a very exciting touristy weekend this past weekend! Lyon had something called les journees des Patrimoine. Where almost all of the touristy things in Lyon were free!!! Virginia and I put on our not so good walking shoes, and Headed to the Musee des Beaux Arts, where we found hundreds of paintings, sculptures, pottery, coins and much more from all over the world through all periods of time. It was pretty beautiful, and very interesting.

We also knew that there were a few Roman Amphitheatres in Lyon, but what we didn't know what where to find them. We wandered around where we THOUGHT they were, but finally had to ask someone

We found the "best" one, at the top of the hill, along with la musee de la civilisation. The museum itself was interesting, but the amphitheatre was absolutely breathtaking :) I'll post some pictures when I can.

Our First full week of school starts tomorrow, so wish me luck!