Foyer Hunting: Le Mans

I went to Le Mans today to go foyer hunting.

In case I haven't explained what a foyer is, it is basically a dorm for young workers.
In fact, that is exactly what it is.
It even comes with a meal plan and shared showers.

This day went way better than the disasterous one in Anger. I bought a new umbrella to replace the one I smashed against the steel pole, but it didn't even rain that much.

There was a strike at the train station (Again or Still?) so I waited an extra hour before boarding. I found the place with minimal trouble after a little trip to the tourist office for a map.

Truth: I had been walking in circles for half an hour before I stumbled across the tourist office.

It was about 2:00 and the foyer lady told me to come back at 5 when the other office workers would be there, because apparently French people have decided to just, not work, at ALL during the day.

But no harm, so I went to go meet Kiwi-Girl who I had made plans with.
*Note the subtle introduction of a real, live, female, age appropriate female-friend

We did some browsing and walked around and then headed back to the foyer where she happens to live.

I think there are only 2 foyers in Le Mans so its not that big of a coincidence. I am certainly not stalking her, though I have been known for my stalkerish tendencies, like that time two weeks where I stalked the admin assistant to beg him to let me pay my rent.

The room is a pretty standard dorm room. Nothing too off-putting or special. The rent is very high, but the government heavily subsidizes it, so after all the paperwork, if I haven't yet died from licking envelopes or paper cuts, it should only be about 200 euro including all breakfasts and 16 meals a month.

They don't have wifi- that being something that exists only in developed countries and the bastion of developed countries, Mcdonalds- but they do have ethernet in the common room, which will have to do.

Frankly, it could have been a shithole and I still would have wanted to live there if only to be in a place that takes more then 7 min. to walk through....

Next: Why I don't want to live in Anger!

*I don't want to overburden you with an overly long post in case you decide you are done procrastinating.

The Local Bar

British roommate has escaped to Nantes to visit his grandmother so Me and the Spanish roommate went to the local bar tonight.

It's actually a nice place. There are darts and pool tables and young French people.

Pretty exciting for Sable.

After I did the usual round of cheek kisses which took about 2 min (2 min of cheek kisses is a lot. I feel really awkward doing it. When there are 5 people, for example, you have to kiss all of them. That's 10 kisses. And everyone kind of crowds around you until you are done. I'm the only one who feels awkward about it though, so I try not to blush) a nice garcon bought me a drink (he also bought like 4 other people a drink- he was just nice).

It was ouzo with some sort of juice. Every time I drink ouzo I think of that time in Greece when I was 18 and it got poured down my throat and then ceramic plates were smashed over my head. Needless to say, ouzo gets me in party mode!

I tried to ask if there was any weed without sounding sketchy, but didn't manage to snuff out any leads. I guess smuggling from 'dam is the only way to go.

The best thing about going to these local bars is that it rapidly improves my French and forces me to converse in it.

Also, PROGRESS... my French language goal for the year is to be able to watch a movie or tv show in French and understand it, and when I watched Lost in Translation tonight in French, I could totally understand a significant amount of words. It is starting to sound less blah blah blah blah and more sensical.




K so I just looked up "sensical" in the dictionary and it is not an entry. Maybe learning French is regressing my English?

Quote from Lost in Translation

Me and my Spanish roommate were watching Lost in Translation tonight after we got home from the local bar (!) and I found this great interview by Bill Murray. I'm not being maudlin, swear, I just like the quote.



"It’s not just being awake in the middle of the night and being anonymous. It’s being awake in the middle of the night with yourself. Without your support, without your buffers, as we call them. Your comfort things, you’re laying down.

He didn’t even have his TV stations. He was trapped. He didn’t have his stuff, he didn’t have his bedroom, he didn’t have his booze, he didn’t have his stuff, [and] he didn’t have his world. It’s just a shock of consciousness where all of a sudden you’re stuck with yourself....

And there’s nobody here that knows me. There’s nobody here that cares about me.

So who am I when I don’t have all my posse, my stuff with me?” That’s what it is. When you go to a foreign country, truly foreign, there is a major shock of consciousness that comes on you when you see that, “Oh God, it’s just me here.”

There’s nobody, no neighbors, no friends, no phone calls - just room service"

~Bill Murray in an interview for the movie Lost in Translation

Ps: I don't even have room service.

Cheddar Cheese!

There was a surprise today in the grocery store.


I saw cheddar cheese for the first time since coming to France! Granted, it wasn't real cheddar cheese, but it was processed and pre-sliced.

How North American!

No rind, no smell, just good 'ol sterile cheese full of chemicals.

Sometimes, ya just need a cheese that melts. Brie is all well and good, but nothing beats cheddar for a good grilled cheese sandwich.

Christmas Lesson

I "taught" about Christmas today.

I've noticed that I mostly complain on this blog instead of actually describing what I am in in France to do.

But it's my blog so I can write what I want.

(but please keep reading! and commenting! lurve comments! they make me feel less lonely and depressed)

So I got a bunch of pictures about winter and Christmas in Canada. And Channukah and Kwanza obviously. I'm nervous that I forgot some sort of ethnic holiday since I have only been around white people for the past 2 months.

I made them a slide show of





children in snowsuits


red Starbucks cups,



Tim Hortons roll-up-the-rim-to-win cups,






Christmas trees, the Ottawa canal, how busy Yorkdale is.

It didn't even make me homesick! Except for the snowsuits...


damn I wish I could wear snow pants and not look like an idiot.

There was this guy in university (shot out-you know who you are) who used to bike to school in bright yellow rain pants from Mountain Co-op, and I was always a little jealous.

Neways, so yes that is basically how I "teach". I showed pictures. And then I wrote the words on the board. Hard shit.

2 classes tomorrow are cancelled. Yay. More free time to accomplish nothing.

The less I do the less I am motivated to do.

I miss ice coffee.

I think I will go to Paris next weekend to buy some. Is anyone else going to be there?

A comically bad day

I went to Anger to Foyer hunt today.

I planned to take the 11:30 train, but I ended up sleeping until 11:30 and taking the 1:00. Then the station informed me that there was a train strike today.

Luckily, I had looked up the word for strike last week because there is a teachers strike this week, as well.

I only had to wait 15 min though, so I guess it is some sort of partial strike, or something.

I got to Anger and easily found the first Foyer I was supposed to look at, but I will talk about that another time; this post is about the shitty parts of my day.

So I left to go find the other Foyers and stopped at the tourist office for a map.

I'm extremely bad at map reading, usually I don't bother with maps because I know it will just get me lost. I usually prefer to wander in circles with no destination in mind or else I get incredibly frustrated by my lack of directionability skills.

But I actually had a specific destination in mind, so attempted to find it by map, which obviously failed, so I walked in circles for a half an hour.

Which was okay since I'm pretty used to being lost.

So I figured that I had to cross the street and turn left. So I crossed the street at a zebra crossing, making sure that the bus had stopped.

annnnd
BAM, I was on the road.

I had tripped over the random stone circles that are evenly spaced on roads.

I was splayed on the ground, in shock. My knee had slammed into the pavement and my palms had broken the fall and ached. I didn't move for 10 seconds than looked up to the bus.

The driver was just sitting there. Emotionless. I caught his eye with mine. It was clear he was unperturbed that a young girl had just tripped in front of him, and I didn't want to hold the bus up.

Yes. I didn't want to to hold the bus up.

Canadians, eh?

I couldn't stand because my knee hurt too much so I dragged myself across the road like a lame drunk and hobbled over to a bench.

I sat there and cried, but I hid my face in my oversize purse so as not to draw attention.

Eventually I got up, my knee was feeling better and I set about trying to find this Foyer again.

After another 10 min, I thought Fuck it, I don't want to live here anyways, why waste my time.


I decided not to live in Anger because they are building a tram line so it's very noisy and congested and the entire city square is being dug up.

So I decided to go browsing instead.

I was innocently in Sephora, when I got kicked out.

Kicked out of Sephora. How could I live in a city where I couldn't even innocently browse in Sephora?

I guess I had used one tester too many or something because the security guard came up to me and told me that I had to ask one of the shop ladies for assistance.

This was just ridiculous. Sephora has a millon testers for a reason. I can't speak French. I don't want to talk to shop ladies, I just want to see if this lipstick is my colour dammit. I can do that myself. Just leave me the fuck alone, I'm browsing, this is my happy time.

Of course his long speech to me about how I couldn't just TEST the TESTERS myself spoiled everything so I left.

---> insert tirade on French customer service here.

I exited the store to pouring rain, but congratulating myself on my cleverness, I whipped out the umbrella I had remembered to bring from home.

I had purchased it for 5 euros along the Seine the last time rain had sprung up on me.

The winds were fierce and in about 10 min. the damn thing broke. I tried to salvage the day, and walked around for a bit more but eventually decided to cut my losses and headed towards the station.

My umbrella just kept breaking and breaking and eventually I got so angry, and was soaked and my knee hurt and my hair was frizzing that I slammed my umbrella against a steel pole and screamed FUCK YOU.

That placated me for a bit. I wanted to do it again , but the sponteniety of the anger had left me and I just felt silly.

I waited 2 damp and shivery hours in the train station because of the strike reading Down and Out in Paris and London, which was extremely appropriate for the situation and made me happy that at least I am not living in 1930s Paris in a flee-infested motel working 12 hours a day as a busboy.

Oh, so that's why I'm broke

I sat down today with a glass of sparkling rose wine and a piece of chocolate cake to make the process of going through my finances easier.

And I discovered why I'm in around -70 euro in debt on my French bank account and why I'm around 450 in debt on my Canadian bank card.

Two nouns.

London. Paris.



I spent waaaaaaayyyyyyy more money then I had planned to.

The biggest purchases on that trip was all the train rides, with me taking the wrong train and everything. In total I payed 215.58 CDN and 78.20 EU for transportation. That's a lot, and next time can be avoided by booking early, not travelling during peak periods, not getting lost, (being less careless is something I have to work on in general!!) and booking trains only with my French account--> which I didn't have a choice of because at the time my debit card hadn't activated.

I spent around 100 Euro on food and beer, which can easily be avoided by NOT EATING OUT!!! Sometime it is very tempting, but I have to learn to control myself. I think next time I can get this number down by half, which will still allow me to eat out a few meals.

I have 50 euros, 150 USD and probably 20 pounds in cash unaccounted for so I have no idea where that money went! Probably ice cream knowing me...

I can't stress how important it is to write down what you spend, either when you are spending it or at the end of the month. For me, it opened my eyes on where I can easily save and where I am overspending. And it only took about 20 min, so its pretty painless. I was kind of in denial before, but now I see how careless I can be. I know what mistakes I won't make again like.....

1. using my Canadian cards
where the exchange rate makes everything 1.5 times more expensive. To my credit, this couldn't be helped because my French card randomly stopped working for a few days in London.

2. Bank fees.
I spent a total of 17.7 on bank fees. Every time you purchase something in a non-Euro zone my French bank charges me 1 euro. It would have been better had I taken out a wad of cash, for which they would have only charged me 3 euro. Of course, knowing me I would have lost all the cash so thinking about it, I would rather spend money on bank fees!


Things I did good

1. Tourist Sites
I only spent 16.07 on tourist site, and that was for ONE entrance fee to the Tower of London. All other touristy things I did for free including walking tours, museums, and markets. This just takes some research time on the internet.

2. Hostels
I spent 40.68 on accomodation. it would have been only 20.65 had I not taken the wrong train and had to pay for a hostel in Nantes.

Now I can budget for future trips with a better estimate of how much I really need and not a fairy-tale version.