switzerland, truffles, and wee-fee!

Yesterday we went to Switzerland - specifically Lake Geneva and Montreux. I have no non-generic terms for it at all. It was beautiful, it was a lot of walking, and I took an entire gigabyte of pictures. Let's just say: Lake Geneva - beautiful lake, strange architecture, banks and watches; Montreux - like a Suisse Monterey Bay with crepes, breathtaking cloud-shrouded mountain vistas, and an ancient castle set near the water up a winding, lakeside cobblestone path. I will post pictures as soon as I can ...

While in Lake Geneva, we stopped in a tiny gourmet chocolate shop run by the sweetest, funniest Suisse woman. We complained about the conversion of the Euro from the dollar, and she said, "Oh, well it is all your fault!" In a funny way, not rudely. I got some of the most beautiful, delectable truffles (raspberry, strawberry, and my favorite, champagne!) ... I haven't dared touch them yet. Plus, I was so tired after our long, long day in Switzerland that I didn't even eat dinner before falling asleep at 10 p.m.

Also, I finally got an internet connection through my laptop ... so I'm not hunting and pecking anymore. It's reaaaalllllyyyyy sloooooooowwwwwww ... but it's there. Also, those of us with laptops met up with the college's IT guy to get our internet set up. He had trouble saying Wi-Fi (he said, wee-fee), and the guy from Oklahoma (that was also getting his internet connection set up) knew way more than the Frenchman did. It was just a funny example of how the French are a little ill-at-ease with computer lingo ...

Also, I didn't really mention it before, but I'm here with about 20 other students. It's been interesting getting to know everyone. After our whirlwind weekend, I know them all a little better. It was hard going without knowing anyone, but it's also forced me to make new friends; I see some of the others who came with one other friend, and they're not venturing out to meet some of the other people in the program. However, my own roommate is very reserved and goes to bed early. So, I've been out in the kitchen/lobby area with my journal in the evenings.

Today was our first day of class. It was really strange to sit in our classroom and look out the window at all of the old brick chimneys and cathedral peaks (we're on the third story, which is really the fourth, since they consider the ground floor the first - make sense?).

Well, I think it's off to the hotel room for a bit and then see about dinner somewhere ... I miss everyone but homesickness hasn't set in yet.

bon soir!
Jennie

bunk beds, sweat, and bread

i dont have much time to update. and the keyboards here are different. all of us are at the school right now hunting and pecking out emails back home. a few things: there are bunk beds in the rooms, no air conditioning to speak of, and most of the proffered food has been baguettes, toast and biscuits. its truly an old city here, there are rules against changing the fronts of the buildings ... so a very modern clothing store like H&M still has a very gothic face. i woke up early this morning to explore and found a broken down carousel, a fountain with a statue covered in a mcdonalds advertisement ... very surreal. i also met some very friendly frenchmen. no other comment on that right now. i will take my laptop to a caffe soon and will write more later...

bonjour
jennie

Luggage storm!

The day before a trip, as you probably know, should not to be confused with the eye of a vacation storm, or even the calm before the storm. It is, in fact, a messy part of the swirling hurricane-y vortex of the whole vacation experience. The planning, packing, weighing of suitcases, and general running around that goes into leaving the country for a month pours out before the actual eye of the storm. Which is, if you think about it, probably that time when you're just sitting in the airport with nothing to do but wait.

I'm anxious. My brother called tonight, and said, So are you nervous? And I said, Well, yeah, I'm sort of a mess. He said, I knew it, I know you too well. So I'm what my family and friends consider "high-anxiety," however, I'm also an intense procrastinator, which only adds to my stress.

All in all, though, pretty much everything is done. I just need to double-check absolutely everything, finish some last minute laundry, do some last minute shopping, and oh yeah, a few more pages to read for class... but I have this vague buzzing filling my head, making it impossible for me to concentrate. I'm filled up with a prickly sense that I'm missing, forgetting something or not doing something extremely critical to my survival in France.

It doesn't help that I'm also at work right now, trying to be careful about my job, but also imagining that my suitcase will have to be re-packed or something once I get home. At this point, I can pretty much imagine all of my favorite things suddenly becoming filthy or unwearable while my French phrase book inches underneath the couch... my brain has become a hive of bees. I need something to calm me down, but what?

The next two days will be difficult: I fly all night to get to Paris around noon, and am the very last student to arrive (it was a cheap flight and had the fewest layovers, so I had to go with it); then, there's customs and baggage claim followed by a 4-hour bus ride to Dijon. All in all, it's a solid 24 hours of travel ... in the same clothes. But by the end of my world-traveling weekend, I will be in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. I can't imagine it now, as I sit in a flourescent, yellowy newsroom with green, faded, stained carpet, typing away on a sticky keyboard and waiting for funeral homes to send me gritty faxes ...

Le sigh. One more day, one more long night, and I'll be on my way. Gotta get these last death notices done before I go.

One last notice:
Dateline: Tulsa
Boredom, Ennui Frustration, 27, liaison to Jennie Lloyd and general contractor for her days and nights, died Thursday. Service 5:01 p.m. Tulsa International Airport Terminal, and graveside service 11:20 a.m. Friday, Charles De Gaulle Airport, Paris, France. Adventure Funeral Home, Dijon.

Whew!

Just found this on Think Progress:

O’Reilly lifts boycott of France

“In March 2003, Bill O’Reilly called on all Americans to boycott the use of French products because of France’s disagreement with the United States decision to invade Iraq… Through the years O’Reilly has claimed his boycott of France has cost the country “billions of dollars” (O’Reilly himself quoted that figure in the non-existent “Paris Business Review“).” But now that France has elected conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, the French can rest easy. O’Reilly said yesterday, “The Factor is lifting the boycott of France. However, ‘Boycott France’ bumper stickers do remain available on BillOReilly.com for nostalgia purposes, and you never know… we may have to re-impose it."

I'm so glad I'm going to an O'Reilly-approved country...

Prove it to me

I have nothing else to worry about now. Well, not really, anyway. All of my finals are over; the test sheets have been bubbled in with my mechanical pencil, and the grades are now posted. I got the new job I was crossing my fingers for. I finished up my first week, in real grown-up work clothes (yes, I unpacked them again). I have most of the big pre-trip-planning done: that is to say, I’ve figured out when to get my hair highlighted and a pedicure gotten. Oh, and the plane ticket. Got that done, too.

Everyone asks me if I'm excited about my trip to France, and I can't really say that I am. I’m more just experiencing a prolonged bout of bouncy, queasy, purposeful nervous energy that is focused on the pinpoint hope of wanting everything to go well. I haven't always been the best traveler, so perhaps this trip is my way of proving to myself that I can do it. I have to prove myself to me all the time. I have to prove that I'm not afraid, that I can handle it, that I’m good enough to be in my own company. I have to ace all the tests, hold 2 jobs (I’m working on the second one right now), volunteer at the hospital, read the best bedtime stories, and have a perfectly clean bathroom floor just to show myself I’m good enough. A month-long study abroad program in France should be one more tick in my favor ... perhaps I will be good enough for myself eventually.

I'm aware, in a prickly-back-of-the-neck kind of way, that a 26-day trip with strangers in a foreign land is going to be life-changing, or at least perspective-changing. I'm like anyone else - a creature of habit. I am "afraid of unknowns," as my little brother would say. I am afraid of what a major perspective change might mean for my future, and for my self, and for my life, how I'm living it here and now. What if - while I'm thousands of miles away across the Atlantic Ocean, completely cut off (well, almost - we'll still have daily Internet access) from my loved ones and my culture and my home - I realize that I've been doing everything all wrong? What if, from the vantage point of far, far away, I see things that I wasn't ready to see, much less deal with? Does Amazon sell super-UV-and-harsh-reality-glare sunglasses – to help with the sharp brightness of space, time alone, and an insane amount of introspection?

4742 miles

This is my itinerary, for any family and friends who are particularly curious, which I'm sure you're not. I've never been in Detroit before. I can't think of two cities that are less related in my mind - Detroit and Paris. Detroit = Eminem and smoking auto factories. Paris = M&M (mimes & Montmartre, natch) and smoking Frenchmen. I suppose this could be good fodder for stalkers ... very wealthy, international stalkers.

Traveler(s)
JENNIFER LLOYD

Thursday, May 24, 2007 Leave
Depart: 5:01pm
evening Tulsa, OK
Tulsa International (TUL)
Arrive: 8:24pm
evening Detroit, MI
Detroit Wayne County (DTW)
Seats: 12A
Economy | Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) | 2hr 23min | 800 miles
Change planes.
Northwest Airlines #50
Depart: 9:15pm
evening Detroit, MI
Detroit Wayne County (DTW)
Arrive: 11:20am
morning Paris, France
Paris Ch. De Gaulle (CDG)
Seats: 22A
Economy | Airbus Industrie A330-300 (333) | Dinner | 8hr 5min | 3942 miles
This is an overnight flight.
Total duration: 11hr 19min | Total miles: 4742 miles


Tuesday, June 19, 2007 Return
Northwest Airlines #49
Depart: 2:00pm
afternoon Paris, France
Paris Ch. De Gaulle (CDG)
Arrive: 5:00pm
evening Detroit, MI
Detroit Wayne County (DTW)
Seats: 15A
Economy | Airbus Industrie A330-300 (333) | Dinner | 9hr 0min | 3942 miles
Change planes.
Northwest Airlines #3755
Depart: 7:00pm
evening Detroit, MI
Detroit Wayne County (DTW)
Arrive: 8:31pm
evening Tulsa, OK
Tulsa International (TUL)
Seats: 5A
Economy | Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) | 2hr 31min | 800 miles

Total duration: 13hr 31min | Total miles: 4742 miles

How do you say "I'm sorry" in French?

I'm terrible at speaking French, not that great at English, and can't hear worth a damn. The first thing I asked my friend, who's helping me learn conversational French, was, How do I say I'm sorry? I figured that would be very helpful in the likely event that I act retarded, stupid, spill something, fall over, or generally insult someone of the French persuasion with the dumb look on my face.

It's "Je suis desole," by the way. And I'm practicing it, over and over, like a mantra. I'm sorry, so sorry, so sorry. Sorry about that accidental punch in the face. Sorry about the way I made you stop what you were doing to help me find my way. Sorry for making you repeat yourself eighteen times before I caught the gist of what was being said. Sorry for not making a greater effort to learn a language other than English. Ever.

I've still got a little over a month before I leave on my OSU study abroad trip to France. I will post more specifics about the trip soon.