TravLog, stardate: 01-04-05

France 4 Jan 05 109
Originally uploaded by Epiphany.

~The English Lesson~
Up early today, to go to SCHOOL!!
Doc's taking some courses in tourism to get a certificate that will allow her to run a "gite" (pron.: jheet), which is basically a self-catering bed & breakfast. She's got a place all picked out - it's quite the "fixer-upper" - and she knows what she wants to do with it, what she'll need to accomplish it, etc. But the first step is this certification.
So she's at this school. And she invited me to come along and check it out. There are other classes taught here, like English. Since this if France, we're talking English as a second language, not English in composition. She talked to the English teacher, Yann, and it turns out I would be today's lesson.
It was only a class of four, and Yann got started by introducing me, and where I was from. He said that we would talk a little about me and where I live, then talk about some of the cultural similarities and differences between France and America. I was getting flashbacks to when I was in school and people came to visit our classes too. It was very strange being on this side of things. Now I completely understood their enigmatic smiles - it's a mix of "they have No Idea that I'm Completely Unqualified to represent my country in Anything," and "aww look. they're so cute. was I ever that young?"
So Yann got the students started trying to ask me questions in English. As long as everybody talked slowly, we did okay with the comprehension, and when we didn't Yann helped us out. They asked me where I live, what I do for a living, how old I am, etc. I sketched out a rough map of the US (that looked strangely like a shark, but I was not hired as an artist soshutup) so that I could put a dot over Wilmington. I also showed them where my parents live, 8 hours west of me but still in the same state. Then I pointed out how far it is to get allthewaytoCalifornia, on the other side of the US. And when asked them how long it takes to get across France (about 10 hours?), I watched it slowly dawn on them that oh la-la...Les Etats Unis sont Graaaaands!
Yann then started asking us about what we know about the US - Big cities and where they are on my pathetic map, what certain places are most famous for (?!? i failed that one.), Sports teams and where they are (i really failed that one), and then we started talking about a subject I am fairly comfortable with: movies. We laughed about what movie titles are the same in either country(allowing for translation), and what titles are completely different, and I noticed that the films that make it from the US to France are the crap blockbuster action flick ones, and the ones that make it to the US from France are the beautifully acted, story-driven ones. Sad, isn't it?
I think we all realized, if we hadn't before, that it doesn't matter if you're fluent in another language or not. Communication can still occur even with a limited vocabulary. I learned little tricks to help people understand me - gestures, facial expressions, repeating phrases with a synonym ("I got flustered, I got...nervous,"), and speaking with a french accent--or rather, speaking English with the accent in which French people speak English.
After class, Doc and I went to speak with the head of the school, Michel, a very nice man in perhaps his 50's who showed us brochures and sketched out a map and itinerary of things we can do tomorrow, given my interests and what's nearby. He seemed a gentle soul, and happy to be around people with similar interests. I would have liked to spend more time with him, perhaps a dinner with friends, to pick his brain on the things he knows and has seen.
After school, we had lunch for three hours at La Contina, this really cool underground place in Chaumont, and then did some shopping. I bought alcohol for my friend who doesn't drink, and a(nother) scarf for myself. We walked around and talked until nightfall, checking out the historic section, churches, medieval dungeons, and towers (the "Tour d'Arse" - Tower of Arse, was a favorite. Who names a tower after a body part, and if it's a tower, why not name it after a different body part??). Then we drove home, where Doc cooked up a dinner of Turkey with a cheese sauce made with Langres, a specialty of the region. I am likely to get quite spoiled.