It seems strange not to capitalize days and months, and the first person singular pronoun. In fact, I find that learning a language has not only been detrimental to my ability to use advanced vocabulary in english, but it has also made me second guess my spelling abilities. I always prided myself on being a good speller, but now I find myself having to really think on some words. For example, "razor" in French is "raseur", and to shave is "raser". So I end up trying to spell "razor" in English as "rasor." I can't imagine what it must be like to know 4 or 5 languages, with so much vocabulary floating around in your head...
The rest of this week I haven't really been doing much other than going to school, going to the beach, walking around the old city, doing my homework and sleeping. There are a lot more english-speakers here in Nice than there were in Bordeaux. And apparently I look and sound like I speak english, even when I try to speak French. If I go into a shop and ask a question in French, I'll get an answer in English. I'm sure the shopowners are trying to accommodate the tourists, but really it's quite annoying because I'm trying to learn. Or maybe they don't have the patience to repeat themselves in French until I understand. And though it's convenient to know that I can pretty much fall back on the prevalence of English around the world, it's really too bad, because that's also one of the reasons that the majority of U.S. citizens know only one language. I'm still not sure if it's a blessing or a curse...
Meanwhile, today I had to give my presentation on the United States. It took nearly 45 minutes; it's really intimidating to talk for that long in French, but there was really a lot to say. And I think that everyone here romanticizes the United States. At least, they definitely romanticize New York. Maybe my experience isn't everyone's, but living in NYC is not like it is on TV shows. No, instead a life consisting of meeting up for coffee or drinks with your friends, my experience revolved around a lot of schoolwork, studying, working and dodging the cruelty of my roommate. But maybe next year will be different.
Alas, the discussion on the United States soon turned to "talk about health care and Obama in the United States" or "how about the cruelty of the death penalty?" or "Describe to us the US policies on immigration" or "how hard is it to get a working Visa to the United States?".... Pretty much a bunch of questions which either held a lot of controversy or I simply did not know. I find that everybody has an opinion on the politics of the U.S., but if I ever gave my opinion on French or Kazakh or Czech politics, I don't think that it would be received very well. I ended up giving brief descriptions for that which I know, and honestly I have no idea how hard it is to get a working Visa in the States... I've never tried to get one. Though I have noticed that a lot of the advertisements on websites here are something like "Voudriez-vous avoir un Visa aux États-Unis?! Cliquez-ici!" ((Would you like to have a Visa to the United States? Click here!))
I didn't click.
Tomorrow marks the last day of my first week in Nice. It's very hot here, every day, and every night. I try to leave the window open most nights, but the apartment in which I'm staying is right next to the train station, and for some reason the trains sound like metal-on-metal. It wakes me up often in the night. And there's a highway (la voie rapide) over the train tracks, and on the underside, I think to deter the homeless, there are fluorescent blue lights which tend to filter into my windows. With any luck, it will cool down and I'll be able to close the windows at night. Or else, I'll just have to get used to it.
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| The view out my window!! Walk for 10 minutes in that direction and you're at the beach!! |
Anyway, this weekend I have plans to go to the Henri Matisse Museum, and of course, to go to the beach.
À toute à l'heure!
Isn't it interesting how much people from other countries know about the U.S.? And how opinionated they are and how happy they are to criticize. I think they can have rather split views about us, if they think that much of life is as they see it on sitcoms.
ReplyDeleteImmigration is a HUGE problem for most European countries, and there is at least as much prejudice against immigrants as there is in the U.S.
How lovely to be 10 minutes from the beach!
I hope the nights have gotten cooler so you can close the windows.