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TAC 2011 - Team Ohana – Le Cinéma Rex | ||
Tags: Dabbling | France | 6 Weeks Challenge (6WC) | Immersion | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | English | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kisfroccs Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5410 days ago 388 posts - 549 votes  Speaks: French*, German*, EnglishC1, Swiss-German, Hungarian Studies: Italian, Serbo-Croatian | Message 145 of 198 05 July 2011 at 8:42am | IP Logged |
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Salut ReneeMona,
Une des techniques les plus anciennes pour naviguer au Moyen-Âge était Rose des vents, où les marins se dirigeaient à la direction du vent. Les cartes, à cette époque, avait une autre orientation : - Le haut de la carte était l'Est : le vent qui en soufflait était le vent oriental que les Italiens nommaient vent d'amont puisque venant du haut (de la carte). - Le bas de la carte était l'Ouest : le vent qui en soufflait était le vent occidental que les Italiens nommaient vent d'aval puisque venant du bas (de la carte). - La gauche de la carte était le Nord : le vent qui en soufflait était le vent septentrional que les Italiens nommaient vent de bize. « Nord » vient de l'ancien haut-allemand nord provenant de l'unité linguistique proto-indo-européenne ner- qui signifie « gauche ». Certains pensent que cela se rapporte à la gauche du soleil levant, ce qui peut être une explication, mais celle qui semble être la bonne est tout simplement que sur cette rose des vents, le Nord se trouve à la gauche de la carte. - La droite de la carte était le Sud : le vent qui en soufflait était le vent méridional que les Italiens nommaient vent austre. « Sud » provient de l'ancien anglais suth (XIe–XIIe siècle), lui-même déformé de l'allemand Sund désignant le soleil. - Le terme « méridien » est un synonyme vieilli de sud. Midi en découle. Aujourd'hui, je pense que "midi" est communément employé pour désigner le sud. Les autres termes, je me rappelle que j'ai dû les apprendre à l'école primaire en géographie. Mais je ne les ai jamais vraiment utilisés :). Voilà, j'espère que ça vous sera utile :) Joli journal au fait ! Kisfröccs 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 146 of 198 05 July 2011 at 8:13pm | IP Logged |
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Annecy: Days -1, 0 & 1 / July 2nd, 3rd & 4th
Saturday July 2: Day -1 Since I arrived very late in the afternoon, I decided not to consider this day a real day yet, but rather a sort of foreword to the actual thing. My hostess lives right smack in the middle of town so we walked there from the station and she gave me an hour to freshen up before we were going out to dinner with a friend of hers. I have my own room here with two beds (you know, in case I get bored with one) and my own bathroom. My hostess is originally from the United Kingdom (which I’m proud to say I could tell from her accent) but she’s lived here for almost four decades and she doesn’t even speak English to her cat anymore. Around seven o’clock we picked up her friend (let’s call him Monsieur C.) and drove around the lake to a fish restaurant in a little town nearby. Since I had no idea what most of the things on the menu were, I chose to go for the first word I recognized (saumon) and for starters we had foie gras, which I had never tasted before and which is delicious despite the slightly unappetizing name. Meanwhile, Madame T. and Monsieur C. were chatting away with me interjecting a “d’accord” or “oui, oui” from time to time. Before moving on to the next day, let me tell you something about Madame T. and Monsieur C. They are both very fond of wine and cheese and are rarely completely satisfied with what they are offered in a restaurant. Monsieur C. especially is never content. I can say this because he openly admits to it himself. He also has a funny way of referring to me as la Petite as if I am not there but he is very friendly, though a bit “special” (again, his own words). He and Madame T. like to complain about things like food, wine, food, politics, food, climate change, food, tourists and food. All in all, I find them eerily stereotypically French. Sunday July 3: Day 0 If yesterday was the foreword, this day was the prologue to my stay since it was actually supposed to be the day of my arrival and therefore it does not count as a real day. We woke up relatively early because Madame T. likes to get to places before everyone else (and so do I). We met up with another friend of Madame T. and her 11-year-old daughter and drove to a hotel in a village on the other side of the lake. We basically spent the day sunbathing, swimming and having lunch at the hotel so I didn’t get much speaking practice but I did make a lot of progress in my new book, called Vendredi ou la vie sauvage, a modern retelling of Robinson Crusoe with a neat little French-Dutch word list in the back. In the evening, Monsieur C. came over and over the course of dinner, I apparently proved that I could be conversed with because he started addressing me directly and by my real name (though I kind of liked la Petite as well). To continue the story of my ineptness that started back in Brussels, on this first day I managed to get a sunburn all over my face and shoulders (forgot my sunscreen) and knocked over an undoubtedly pricy bottle of wine. Monday July 4: Day 1 First real day! I woke up early (I fear I will be doing that a lot) to buy a month bus pass before having to take the bus to school but I needed a student card (not really, but to get a nearly 50% discount) so my hostess just told the bus driver where I needed to go. I very stupidly forgot to ask the name of my stop so I just sat there for about ten minutes, wondering if the driver was going to remember to throw me out at the right stop. He did, though it took me a while to realize it. After what must have been two or three minutes, he turned around and told me somewhat impatiently that we were standing right in front of the school and if I could please get out now. After waiting in a room for what must have been a full hour and watching all the other new students arrive (I was the first!), we were led into a room and shown a power point presentation about everything we needed to know, explained in French first and then in English. After that we were assigned a teacher and time to have our little oral exam to determine our level and the group we needed to be in. I was pretty nervous for this but I was asked to talk about myself for five minutes, which is a subject I happen to know a lot about so I thought it went rather well. The teacher obviously thought so as well because she was visibly surprised (and she also said it, for good measure) and said I did very very well (yep, there were two très there), which must mean that I was preceded by a string of absolute beginners who made someone who spoke even just a little French seem a lot more impressive than I was in reality. Now we get to the part of the story I am a little bit ashamed of. Up until this point I had effectively avoided all Dutch and English speakers and spoken nothing but French to everyone. For Dutch this was easy because I only recognized one compatriot and made a point of standing at least ten feet away from him at all times, but it was impossible to avoid speaking English since that’s what everyone addressed each other in since most people were not advanced enough to speak French. After the interviews, we were supposed to go out and have lunch and since I didn’t want to go alone, I tagged along with two girls (one American and one Canadian) and we spoke almost exclusively in English for the next four hours. Bad, Renee, very bad. The rub with English is that it’s still a non-native language that I don’t get to practice with native speakers very often so speaking it doesn’t make me feel as guilty as it should. However, I have learned my lesson and from today on I will try my best to speak in French or not all. After lunch we were taken on a tour of the town, which was completely useless because instead of being divided up into smaller groups like I thought we would be, one or two teachers took all hundred-something of us so about 90%, which included me, didn’t hear anything of what they were explaining. Next up was an explanation (completely in French, which made me feel bad for the many people around me who looked confused/bored/about to cry) of all the extracurricular activities the school offers in the month of July and then we finally got to hear our group assignments. They had explained that there would be ten groups, 1 being the lowest level and 10 being the most advanced. They also talked about the CEFR levels (I was one of the few raising their hand when they asked who was already familiar with them *self-satisfied snicker*) and explained that the groups would correspond to those levels so I had expected to be put in group 4 or 5 or maaaaybe 6. Imagine my shock when I turned out to be in group 10. AARGH! I knew it, I knew that teacher way overestimated my speaking skills! I initially intended to go to a teacher right away and ask to be transferred to a different group but I bumped into a British girl (English again, bad Renee) who was in the same situation so we decided to wait for our first class and see if maybe we can handle it. In the meantime, I have several theories about my being in the top group: 1) There are so many beginners that everyone who is intermediate or already fluent is lumped together in one group. 2) The fact that they asked me to talk about easy subjects like myself and my last vacation made me appear to be more fluent than I am so they have severely overestimated my speaking abilities and I will have to be transferred to another group after the first day. 3). There aren’t any real advanced students so they were forced to put intermediate students like me in the advanced groups. In about an hour I will know which one it is since that’s when I’ll have my first class. And speaking of that class, I need to go get ready for that now. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- @ Solfrid Cristin: Oops, I’m sorry I caused you pain but very glad that it was worth it. I think my unconscious reasoning was that middle and central kind of mean the same thing so consequently, it had to be central station. Or maybe I was just not reasoning at all. Ah well, at least I will never make this mistake ever again. @ Vos: I think you’ve said something similarly flattering before but I have a short memory and I love compliments so thank you very much! I always try very hard to find four-syllable words and long strings of adjectives to sound as impressive as possible so I’m glad it’s working. Taking photos might become a problem because all I brought to take photos is my cell phone, which is still refusing to connect to the Bluetooth on my computer. So really the problem isn’t taking the photos but doing anything with them afterwards. But I will definitely enjoy the countryside and everything else they have here, like architecture, history and most importantly: La vache qui rit (which we have in the Netherlands as well but I swear it tastes different over here!). I hope you have a great summer as well! @ Kissfrocs: Merci, c’est très intéressant et informatif. Je viens de découvrir le mot latin merīdiēs, ce qui veut dire « midi » ainsi que « sud » et dont je suppose sont dérivés les mots comme méridional et midi. Ça n’a toujours aucun sens pour moi d’avoir le même mot pour « midi » et « sud » mais ça a peut-être quelque chose à voir avec la position du soleil ? J’en sais rien mais je vais quand même jamais l’oublier. Ça pourrait m’épargner beaucoup de crises d’angoisse dans le futur. Edited by ReneeMona on 05 July 2011 at 8:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6086 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 147 of 198 06 July 2011 at 8:42pm | IP Logged |
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man, that was fun to read. Thanks for the recount of your adventures!
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 148 of 198 10 July 2011 at 4:59pm | IP Logged |
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Week 27 / Annecy, Week 1 : July 4th - 10th
I have a new best week of the year so far! I actually think I could be doing even better but I sure am loving these numbers. The week isn’t officially over yet but since I don’t have class today and it’s been raining intermittently all day so far, I probably won’t do anything more interesting than watch a movie or TV and talk with my hostess so I can just add the times after posting. I am absolutely loving Annecy! It is situated in between a couple of beautiful mountains and of course the lake and the old center is filled with cobble-stoned streets, beautiful old buildings and market places selling God-knows-how-many different kinds of cheese. I also found a fabulous candy store called La cure gourmande and I’ve been spending inordinate amounts of time in the Intermarché (I love French supermarkets. They sell EVERYTHING) and the cemetery (great place to read and get acquainted with French names). French Week 27 (44): 45 h. 45 min. 2011: 469 h. 40 min. Classes I’m still not entirely sure which of my three theories was correct but whichever it was, I am doing just fine in the top group. Many of my classmates have either spent weeks or months in immersion before or are French majors so their speaking skills are better than mine but in terms of grammar and passive understanding, I am sure I am perfectly on par with the rest of the class. In fact, I have reason to believe that I am not the worst student in the class! Whoooo! I have four consecutive hours of class every day, either in the morning or the afternoon, broken up by a little break of twenty minutes in which I usually stay in the classroom to chat with my the other students so that means I get a solid four hours of immersion every day. My teachers speak nothing but French to us and explain new vocab in French without giving translations. Except for some of the Americans who already knew each other before, all the students speak French amongst themselves as well. We mostly focus on listening and speaking by watching and listening to things and then discussing them afterwards but we also do dictation to improve our spelling and we read a lot of articles, mostly about the history and culture of France. There are around thirteen people in the group, about a third of which are American and the rest is made up of various European nationalities. I am the only Dutch person in the class (and one of only two in the entire school) so I am often called upon to contrast the situation in France to that in the Netherlands, which means I get more speaking practice than most of the Americans, since there are five or six of those. Immersion I am currently getting two different kinds of immersion: speaking with my fellow students and listening/talking to my hostess (and her friend, who has dinner here or takes us out to dinner almost every other day). The first is the most beneficial to my speaking, because it’s easy to let go of my perfectionism and the other students speak just as slowly and hesitantly as I do so we’re patient with each other’s mistakes and give each other time to formulate what we want to say. The second is most beneficial to my listening skills because they speak/bicker at natural speed. My hostess has started correcting my mistakes as I speak, which I take as a sign that she thinks I am advanced enough to handle being interrupted from time to time. Other activities Being an introvert, I simply can’t handle seeking out conversation as often as I should but I try to fill my me-time with French as well. So far I have finished reading the second Harry Potter book and watched the film, as well as finishing my Robison Crusoe-rewrite and having started in Le journal de Bridget Jones, which is turning out to be challenging but manageable. I also watch TV (usually the news) and try to listen to nothing but French music. Basically, the only thing that is keeping me from being completely immersed in French 100% of the time is my addiction to this forum. Improvements Perhaps surprisingly, I have seen the biggest improvement so far in my listening skills. Or perhaps I am simply gaining more confidence in them. Either way, I have zero problems understanding my teachers, I understand practically everything Madame T. and Monsieur C. say to me and to each other and I’m getting better at understanding people on TV and in films. My hostess also says that she can tell I already understand her better than I did a week ago and she understands me much better as well, so I guess my speaking skills are also improving. I can still hear myself make one horrendous mistake after another but I can usually get my point across and the “never mind, I can’t phrase it so I’m just not going to say it”-moments are occurring less frequently. To close with, these are some small achievements that I am rather proud of: - nobody has switched to English on me yet. - I arranged a student card, a bus pass and the sending of a very important package all in French and all by myself. - the other night I watched a film on television and was able to understand well enough to get absorbed in the story. (Awesome film by the way: L’armée des ombres) - in keeping with the motto of this log (“If you can’t be interesting/inspirational/intelligent, at least be funny.”), I was able to get my entire class to laugh out loud several times over the course of the week (and no, they were not laughing at my mistakes). Edited by ReneeMona on 27 July 2011 at 4:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 149 of 198 12 July 2011 at 1:07am | IP Logged |
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Annecy, Day 8 : July 11th
Don’t worry, I’m not posting daily from now on. It just occurred to me that so many things happened today that I needed to mention in my log that I might as well write about them right away, now that I still remember them. The first thing I wanted to mention is that today for the first time since my arrival, I really felt like I’d noticed some progress in my speaking abilities. It’s already too long ago (it happened this morning) to remember what I was talking about and what I remember of it was not that impressive in hindsight but for about half an hour, I felt like I was speaking more fluently than before and everything from grammar to vocabulary and accent seemed to come more easily. Now of course, I didn’t just write this post to brag. Another thing I have to talk about are tests. Thanks to a couple of American universities that demand their students be tested at least twice (or they won’t get credit for the course), we have our first test at the end of this week and the second in the last week of July. We will be tested on our grammar, written comprehension and written expression (I seem to remember being told that we would be tested on our oral skills at some point as well but I can’t find out when or where). At first I rather liked the idea of being able to compare my progress in two weeks with the results of these tests but now I am rather scared of them because this morning, our teacher cheerfully announced that we were going to practice with a C1-level text because that’s the kind of text we would be getting on the test. C1?!?! Are they crazy? I only just started considering the possibility that I may have reached a B1 in all four skills by now. But my teacher wasn’t done freaking me out just yet. She made us read a text and answer some questions about them, which made me feel a little better because it wasn’t that hard, only to ruin my mood again by claiming that this was a an easy C1 text. Great. Freaked out again. We also had to write an essay about some questions that I didn’t really understand so I just blathered about what I liked about France (food, nature) and what I didn’t like (too sunny) and that I would like to live/study in France at some point. Since the test is this Friday, I assume we will get some kind of feedback on these assignments before then, but I think my writing will be hopelessly simplistic because it only occurred to me afterwards that I probably should have tried to incorporate some more advanced grammar (a correct use of the subjunctive makes everyone here squeal with delight). Another event scheduled for this week that I am looking forward to a whole lot more, is a trip to Genève (including a visit to the United Nations Office!). The school organizes a couple of excursions every week and though a lot of them sound like a lot of fun, I could only sign up for a couple because many of them take place on weekdays and I have promised myself that I will keep a perfect attendance record (so far, so good). This trip to Genève is on Thursday, when the school will be closed due to it being Bastille day so I will be able to go with a clear conscience. I also signed up for a visit to the Château de Menthon, which is very close to Annecy and looks like something straight out of a Disney film. In completely unrelated news, I lost my phone today. Or maybe lost isn’t entirely the right word, since it implies an accidental occurrence while this was entirely my own stupid fault. For those who are not scatter-brained and would like to know how thankful they should be for this: I was walking home after signing up for the previously mentioned excursions when I noticed that I wasn’t wearing my sweater and after checking my bag, I realized I must have left if in the office so I walked back to the school. Once I had my sweater back and was waiting at the bus stop, I wanted to check the time on my phone and discovered it was gone. I then remembered that I had been holding my phone when I realized I’d forgotten my sweater and as I put my bag down on the ground to look inside it, I had placed my phone beside it on the street, forgot to pick it up and just left it lying there on the sidewalk. *sigh* Of course it wasn’t there when I returned so I’ve decided to wear this sweater every day until my death and pass it onto my children to hopefully make it worth the sacrifice of my phone. I don’t even know why I’m telling this story now, as it has nothing whatsoever to do with languages, but I figured it was part of my Annecy-experience and it will also ensure that I will never forget the word le gilet again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 150 of 198 13 July 2011 at 3:49pm | IP Logged |
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Annecy, Day 10 : July 13th
Since today was an interesting day and tomorrow, the day after that and the day after that probably will be as well, I’ve decided to post a little more often this week because I don’t feel like spending half my Sunday writing a humongous update that no one is going to read anyway since it’ll be way too long. So, today was interesting for two reasons. One: it’s been raining cats and dogs all day, which is a rarity here and which has me feeling more awake and alert than I’ve felt in some time. Two: after class, the school organized an hour of conversational practice for some of the lower groups and since we in the top group are presumed to be the best French-speaking students in the school (har, har), we were asked if some of used cared to help out the two teachers who were in charge of this thing. I enthusiastically and somewhat stupidly raised my hand because I thought it would simply be another hour of practice and we were just supposed to be there as somewhat more advanced speakers to help the conversation along now and then. Little did I know that we were going to be introduced as co-teachers and were supposed to move around the room helping people and answering questions. In other words, I was suddenly supposed to be a figure of authority, which I did not like at all. The students were all part of a group from the University of Hawaii and they spoke French at very different levels, ranging from people who could barely introduce themselves to people who sounded scarily more advanced than I had expected them to. After everyone introduced themselves (and this took a while because there were about thirty of them), one of my class mates came up with a speed-dating-esque system that involved everyone pairing up and then changing partners after a couple of minutes and we (two teachers and three group-10-ers) walked around the room slapping people on the wrist (literally) if they spoke English since the aim of the class was simply to get them to speak French. I made sure to stay close to the beginners who were making mistakes along the lines of “Je suis vingt ans” and left the more advanced students to the native speakers, but mostly I stood in front of the class and talked to one of the teachers while trying to look like I knew what I was doing. I think they bought my act because at the end the teachers asked us if we wanted to come again next week and since it was basically an extra hour of immersion, I agreed. Now, as for the rest of the this week. Tomorrow I will leave for Genève pretty early in the morning and I’ve been assured that we will be back in time for the fireworks (supposedly, there will be a show lasting almost twenty minutes!). On Friday we have our first test, which as I understand will consist of an essay prompt, a text and some grammar questions (all at level C1 so we should probably not be too hopeful about this). On Saturday I will meet up with a friend from Amsterdam in Lyon and spend the day there and for Sunday I half some half-baked plans to go paddle boating on the lake but I’m not so sure about this . A couple of days ago they found the bodies of four people in the lake, one of whom had apparently drowned after falling out of a boat the week before. Nice. Apart from that I don’t like paddle-boats because I think it takes too much effort to advance over too small a distance but the friends who came up with this have promised that I’ll be allowed to sit in the back so we’ll see. Apart from that things are going alright here. I am having a problem with the sound of my computer, which means I can’t watch films or start on a new Harry Potter book (not that I was planning to do that) and this is having a very negative effect on my daily study time, since I usually add at least two hours this way. I also can’t seem to stop buying books at a rate of one or two per day but I’ve decided that this is allowed since I will soon be back in Amsterdam with limited access to French books, plus those folios are really cheap anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 151 of 198 18 July 2011 at 1:09pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, I am impressed at your progress. How was your trip to Geneve?
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 152 of 198 18 July 2011 at 11:32pm | IP Logged |
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Week 28 / Annecy, Week 2 : July 11th - 17th
Week 2 is over and done with and half of my stay here has passed. My study time for this week is a bit disappointing, but I blame this on my computer still not working properly and on myself not switching on the television instead. If it weren’t for my DVD collection, my television at home would never be used at all so I’m finding it a bit hard to get into the habit of watching television again. I should though, because it’s excellent practice. I often watch the morning news while eating breakfast or sometimes my hostess puts it on during dinner (which would normally annoy me but in this case it doesn’t) so altogether I think I’ve already watched more TV since arriving here than in the last two years put together. It’s the commercial breaks I can’t stand, and of course all the mindless drivel that usually comes in between. One good thing that came from my inability to watch films is that I started reading pretty intensively. I finally found both Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources after having scoured every bookstore in town for them for the last two weeks. I finished Jean in two days and will start on Manon as soon as I have time, probably tomorrow. I really love Pagnol’s stories and writing style so I think I am going to buy his souvenirs d’enfance series after finishing l’eau des collines. He seems to have produced more films than books but souvenirs d’enfance consists of four books so that should keep me busy for a while. French Week 28 (45): 40 h. 30 min. 2011: 510 h. 10 min. (Yeaah! Halfway to 1,000!) The composition of our class has been changed a little this week, with people constantly coming and going. There’s a new girl from Spain and another one from Serbia who speaks fluently and with a near-native accent and who effectively destroyed my last bit of confidence by recounting her story of growing up in a warzone and laying out her life’s philosophy while meanwhile I was racking my brain to remember the word for “work together” (it was quite a problem because I could only remember the Dutch term so no-one could help me and I had only brought my French-Dutch dictionary…). However, later on she made me feel a little better by not understanding a word that I have known for ages (I can’t help being competitive and vindictive, it’s the dark side of insecurity and perfectionism!). That’s not to say that I don’t have my own set of admirers. For reasons that are truly beyond me, I keep earning compliments on my French, which utterly bewilder me every time. My hostess, her native-speaking friend and every fellow student I talk to have all told me I speak very well and protest vehemently when I tell them I suck. I’ve also had several people tell me or others that I “speak” or “know” French and every time that happens, I can’t help but be reminded of the countless discussions about fluency and “speaking a language” I have read on this forum and concluding that these people claiming I am in any way fluent either have way too low standards or don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. Now, since a couple of important things happened this week, let’s go back and discuss them one by one. Bastille Day For some mysterious reason, I wasn’t on the list of students who had signed up for the trip to Genève (even though I damned well had signed up and paid too!) so I had to wait for everyone else to get on the bus (and take all the good seats) before the activity-organizer/guide (whose name is Philippe) could add me to the list and squeeze me into the bus (because of this, he now knows me and greets me by name, earning me some admiring stares from some of the other students, who will forever remain anonymous since Karma is not out to get them). We drove to Genève in about an hour and were first led around the old city center while Philippe told us about the history of the city and the famous people who lived there. This was all done in French of course so I felt quite sorry for the people from the lower groups who were probably putting on interested faces for the sake of politeness while wondering what he could possibly be saying. Being Dutch and having taken philosophy in high school, it was pretty interesting to see Calvin's chair and the house where Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born. We also visited the cathedral, which has a little chapel with the kind of beautiful Catholic decorations that the entire church was covered in before the reformation, and in the official oldest house of Genève (which is to say the first house built out of stone), we saw an amazing model of Genève, that a guy spent eighteen years of his life on. After the tour we were set loose in the center and since I had no idea what to do with the three and a half hours we had (I should probably have done some research beforehand) I wandered around with the Canadian girl I had met on my first day, looking for a supermarket to buy lunch while being shocked at the cost of everything. I’ll tell you this much, as far as I am concerned, Genève has more than earned its ranking as the fourth most expensive city in the world and I shudder at the thought of what the cost of living in the top three must be like. After feasting on bread, cheese and diet coke (which for some reason was actually less expensive than what I am used to), we strolled along the river and wondered at the attraction of the jet d'eau, or the super squirt as I call it, as its only uses seem to be to waste huge amounts of energy and drench unsuspecting tourists (don’t worry, I was not one of those tourists). Despite the ridiculous prices and questionable landmarks, there is one thing I have to hand to the Genevans: their toilet facilities are excellent! I have never seen a public restroom on a square in the middle of a city that was clean, free and supplied with toilet paper! Awesome, and certainly miles away from those squat-holes that I encountered during childhood vacations in France and that still give me nightmares a good five years after last encountering one. Brrrr. So, after being herded back into the bus (there were sixty of us, led by one guide…) we drove the small distance to the Palace of Nations where we were led around by a Swiss lady who spoke French with an Italian accent. Once again, I was reminded of being a language nerd when our guide asked who could name the six official languages of the UN and more than one person suggested German… We saw a bunch of conference rooms and beautiful artwork given to the UN by its member states and our guide just kept rattling off numbers that always made me loose track of what she was saying while I was trying to figure out what year she just mentioned (I have a real problem with numbers). I was also getting rather tired by this point so I was glad when the tour was over and we drove back to Annecy. After having slept for about two hours and eating dinner, I was awake enough to go watch the fireworks for le 14 juillet. I must admit that I was rather disappointed with Bastille day, as I had expected there to be more organized activities and general festivities going on but it seems I didn’t miss anything while I was in Genève. The firework was lit from the other side of the lake and on our side, it seemed that the entire population of Annecy plus surrounding villages had showed up to lie on the grass and enjoy the spectacle. It lasted for a good twenty minutes and I can honestly say that it was the best use of fireworks I’ve ever seen, made even better by the sounds echoing off the mountains behind us, which is a phenomenon we Dutch people are not used to. :) Test Day Evidentially, someone at the school had thought it would be fun to welcome us back after the holiday with a particularly difficult test. I had not done much in the way of studying because the idea hadn’t really occured me, but I had entered the passé simple and subjunctive conjugations for about forty verbs into Anki and knew them reasonably well, especially the passé simple, which is really quite simple once you start recognizing the patterns in the formation of it. The test began with a page of exercises on verb tenses and pronouns. Then we were asked to write eight sentences describing a period of history in our countries. I chose WWII because I needed a period I knew so much about that I could pick and choose the parts that were easiest to describe. I panicked a little when I couldn’t remember the exact number of people that died in the hongerwinter until I remembered that this was not a history test and I probably wouldn’t lose points over it. Then we got to the part of the test that I had been dreading, and with good reason. We got a text about the attitude problem of the French soccer team (not exactly my kind of subject) that was full of slang and expressions that made it particularly difficult to understand. We had to define or give synonyms for a bunch of words I didn’t know and could not deduce from the context so I made up some answers to make the page look less empty and moved on to the questions, which were a lot easier. Lastly, we had to choose a problem in the world of professional sports and explain in twenty lines why it was a problem and how we would like to see this solved. I think they expected us to choose doping or anorexic gymnastics but I chose to write about how professional athletes earn way too much money. I don’t actually care that much about this but it was easier to write a decisive and one-minded argument than trying to look at it from multiple points of view. Overall, I don’t think I did very well but we will probably find out tomorrow. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- @ Solfrid Cristin: I assure you I am not making impressive progress at all but thanks anyway. As I said, people around me keep insisting that I am doing very well which irritates me because I don’t feel like I’m doing well at all. I loved Genève but it was really very expensive so that will influence my plans if I ever visit it again in the future. I loved getting to use a different currency for a day though and I even kept some Swiss Francs and took them back with me. Edited by ReneeMona on 22 July 2011 at 11:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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