Adjusting to the good life in France

I thought life meant to slow down while abroad, not speed up. On the optimistic side, I’m on the cusp of freedom. Well freedom involving a 40 hour lab work week, but it’s grand! I’m in ze France after all….

The true goal of government subsidized housing I’ve discovered is not to provide economy housing, but rather to encourage you bust your ass working so that you never have to live anywhere like that again. Perhaps I’m being dramatic, but here’s the


Pros
-Safe neighborhood, 5 minutes away from the European Parliament
-Things are, in fact, clean
-We get our own rooms
-Mini fridges
-It’s in France


Cons
-Showers?
Last night I discovered we had no temperature control, and almost burned myself while holding the button for water in the facet like annoyance. Lesson: Why French women are hairy and BO is a common problem
-Co-ed toilets with no seats.
wtf.
-Loud, obnoxious, foreign neighbors who listen to 90’s rap.
-No toilet paper
Let me reiterate, wtf.

In all seriousness, I’ll live….aside from the bathrooms.


Impressions (not impressionists!) of Strasbourg

The city reminds me of something in between an art museum and child’s story book. They have nice above ground trams, with reminders on the big glass doors to validate your ticket with literally a huge smiley face on it. I’ll have to remember to take a picture and post it here later. Inside the city, the trams have grass on the tracks so it doesn’t look so unsightly, and the best part is the stops have sound effects attached to them. Instead of mundane announcements, children read the stops and they play some sort of themed affect (although my French isn’t quite good enough to understand how it’s related yet). Since this is France, the buildings are either antique grand or modern chic. Sometimes it’s classic art, sometimes it’s mod.

People ride their bikes everywhere, and I’m going to look into renting one as my mode of transport later this week. Keep in mind these aren’t mountain bikes, but old fashioned bikes with baskets. The weather, along with the people, has been very welcoming with blue skies and mild weather. It gets a bit chilly in the mornings/evenings, but during the day it feels like the spring days we get 5 times a year in Texas.

I think I’m really going to love the lab here at the Louis Pasteur Institute. When dealing with the renown Pasteur Institute in France I thought the campus would blow my mind.

It did, but only because it’s the ugliest thing in Strasbourg. Maybe that’s harsh… and I’ve always thought UT had a pretty campus, but this just confirms it. I need to get more pictures, but the buildings are mostly from the 60’s and under a lot of remodeling. I suppose these buildings are like organic chemistry books…the more wear and tear the more science getting done…

Also, these weird trees are everywhere. I’m not sure what’s up with them. :) See also below.


Spare moments to explore

There are four other Americans here.

Matt 1- aka Tulane Matt- obviously from Tulane University. He wants to be called Griff apparently. Matt speaks very good French and I can already tell is going to be my first source to learning French this summer. He also knows a lot about art history and other “high culture” so we’re going to have to fun doing the museum thing.

Matt 2- Just graduated from a Tennessee university (small private school) and will be going to University of Florida for grad school when he’s done doing research here in December.

Christy- She’s from UF (University of Florida) so knows all the people we had to apply to to get here. She’s my age and is also staying through next semester doing research (they applied for extended stays)

Karen (spelled differently, but I don’t remember) is from a small private school somewhere in the Midwest. Haven’t seen a lot of her yet… but I will soon!

Bottom line:: everyone’s chill. It’s cool….


So we’ve been exploring the past few days. Yesterday we went into the really old part of Strasbourg called, Petit France. We started the morning at the open air market they have on Saturday mornings. I was a bit disappointed since my standards are impeccably high after last summer in Vienna, but it was neat to walk around and soak it all in. I think in a month or so I’m going to go there to practice my French.

Above: open air market.

Petit France = quaint.
This is Tulane Matt
It was basically adorable, I plan to go back. We went into an old church to look around, and it made me feel like I was back in Vienna. I bit of positive deja-vu there.

In petit France we did some people watching which was fun. Also, we took “wtf face” pictures in front of this weird car that apparently belonged to one of the hundreds of German tourists, then walked two minutes and saw another. Here’s the before/after…
French Food. Yum. It even has a special banana type plate:

I think I’m going to wrap it up for now. Expect more stories later.

Elaine

One more thing….
Putain, s’il vous plaît.
Translation: Bitch please.


Love it. ;)

What's up with these trees? For real. They're everywhere.