It's monday. This morning I woke up first at 5 am, freezing. The temperature here is so odd compared to home. First of all, days are scorching with no safety from the sun. Our classes end around 330pm and so our walk home, up the Dreadful Hill as I call it, is at the hottest time of day. It's a shadeless walk. Torture. Humidity is something that kills me at home, but here that seems to not exist. At home, to be in the shade on a sunny day really just means getting the sun out of your eyes. Here, where there is shade it's cool. Anyways, what I was trying to get at is that in the morning it's cold, during the day it's scorching and come nightfall it cools down again. I woke up freezing but no position I curled into warmed me up, and I had the blanket they provided for us covering my entire body. It was horrible.
Not only that, but I was forced to get out of bed to blow my nose and get some water because my allergies get the worst of me, and the air here is very very dry. And then I had the issue of fearing not waking up on time, but I ended up getting up at 730am, which is VERY early for me.
First we headed to Cité Universitaire to have breakfast. There, they served us a piece of baguette, a chocolate croissant, a cup of orange juice and a choice of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. I chose coffee but I guess here they drink it black, so I decided to do so. It was disgusting aha.
After breakfast we headed to l'Université de Nancy where we sat in a decently sized lecture hall to take our placement test. It was like any other placement test I've taken. A listening activity (where we listened to a clip and answered multiple choice questions), a grammar activity (where we conjugated verbs or chose the proper use of pronouns), a reading activity (where we read a text and answered questions based on said text) and finally a written section (where we were given a picture and had to either explain it, or envision having attended the party it advertised and explaining it in letter form). After that we were given some free time (which we spent mostly hanging out on the grass near the building we'd just been in) and then as a group they showed us to the cafeteria-style establishment where we have lunch and dinner every day. I had chicken and fries and some fruit. It's a very nice place but with minimal seating area. It's only open during lunch and dinner hours, so I really wonder how packed it gets during the real school year.
After lunch we headed back to the building in which we took our placement tests. We were told before lunch that we would be introducing ourselves by nationality, so Atyeh and I found the other Canadians (who came from the University of Victoria in BC) and decided we were going to sing the anthem in English and French. In total there were presentations from students who came from 25 different countries (including Canada). Those countries being (excluding Canada): Brazil, Poland, Lebanon, Australia, Belgium, Grece, Turkey, Croatia, Iran, German, USA, Denmark, Romania, South Africa, Switzerland, Russia, Netherlands, Ireland, Bulgaria, Albania, Guinee, Taiwan, Sweden and China. Such a multicultural group. The total number of students is approximately 130, which is apparently much more than the program has ever experienced. I remember a few things from the presentation so I'll just put them here.
We were sitting in the hall and my Euros from yesterday were sitting down the aisle from us. Countries were getting called and I jokingly said "Watch, I bet they aren't even Euros, they're going to be from South Africa or something like that". Sure enough, South Africa got called and one of them got up. I laughed. The other turned out to be from the Netherlands. I don't really remember what everyone did to present themselves, but I wrote down the things I wanted to make sure I post about. The student here from Bulgaria showed us one of the longest words in any language ever: neprotvcokonstituzionstwowatelstwuwaite. That's the spelling in the English alphabet, but I can't for the world sound it out phonetically for you because he said it so quickly. From Taiwan, we learned that in Chinese (or Taiwanese I don't really remember), hello is Ni Hôa [knee-how]. Anais, the girl from switzerland, taught us that in the different parts of Switzerland they speak different languages but that commonly they speak Swiss-German. She said one of the hardest words to pronounce is khokhikheshli, which turns out to be something you find in the kitchen. She didn't specify what. There was a group from Ireland who taught us to say "My name is..." in Gaelic: is mise [eez-me-sha]. The german, who I see everywhere but still don't know his name, was a comedian. He presented himself then told us that Germany invaded France twice, started 2 World Wars and that we may know some famous Germans like Hitler but there are also others (he named them but I can't remember for the life of me). The guys from Denmark were pretty funny too. One of them was wearing a shirt that said "To Err is Human, To Arr is Pirate". I was definitely amused. Then they sang some danish song, horribly may I add. The group of English students had us all get out of our seats to do Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes. The Americans, from Pennsylvania, decided they were going to do the Souja Boy and I laughed the whole time. Then their 16 year old from California decided she was going to sing us a song. I don't know what it was, and although she was flat for a lot of it, she had a pretty decent voice, and a hell of a lot of courage. Ooh! And the Australians sang a song about Koalas not wanting to be called Bears, or something.
After introductions we were taken to the building where our classes will be, which was actually a lot closer than it looks on the map. On our way there, when they were telling us where we were going, the group of boys had somehow acquired beer and were having a brew. When we got to he the building at Nancy 2, the directors of the program explained how things would be working, and told us we could find what group we're put into by the end of the night in the doorway of our residences. Then we headed home to change and then to a little market, what they call a Proxy. I got toilet paper, Peach iced tea and some snacks, in case you were wondering. After that it was dinner time. We had um, veggies and meatballs if I remember correctly. After dinner, the group of boys asked Atyeh if she wanted to go for drinks at Place Stanislas. She asked if I wanted to join, but I really didn't want to have to carry my grocery bag around and I didn't want to spend money so I told her to go, and Tang and I headed home.
I ended up having to wait for Atyeh to get home before I could shower because I had lent her my shampoo and once again, when it was shower time, I wasn't able to access hot water. I think I just choose the worst times to shower. Who knows.
I think that's everything that went on today.
À plus tard!
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