Well that was awkward...

So this morning I was buying wine and the lady in front of me in line was talking bad about Americans who come in and buy bad wine, excited about how cheap it all is. I'm awkwardly standing behind her, buying cheap (and apparently bad) wine. Being American.

I get to the front of the line, determined to say as little as possible in the hopes that they won't notice and get awkward. I get the first word "Merci" out, and bam, instant, awkward silence

in the store.

"You're American?"

"Ouais..."

Aaaawkward.

But aside from the awkward bit, I traversed the market this morning entirely in French! It's so fabulous. All of the vendors kept shouting "Goutez! Goutez!" and handing me pieces of cheese and olives. One guy determinedly handed me olives, and after I said I wanted to buy some he continued to say "Goutez!" and handed me more. And so I kept trying some and telling

him I wanted to BUY them. I don't believe he understood, so I gave up and just bought my apples.

But here are the purchases I made:

That would be, from left to right, lavender honey (sooo good), some of that cheap, bad French wine that is now kir, a baguette, and a faaaabulous piece of Roquefort cheese.

Voila my lunch!

And, as demanded by my mother...

Here's my room. Isn't it seventies? On the bed is the most useful thing I've ever bought in my life - my basket-bag-thing. Not only handy for groceries, but also for taking laundry to the laundromat, hiding under, and being basically American-visiting-France. I'm in love with it and it's utter usefulness.

THERE ARE NO SQUIRRELS IN THIS CITY.

The continuing saga of sheets

So a few of you were around when I first talked to my landlady here. And, while I understood the majority of the conversation, I got confused about the sheets. I wasn't sure if she was providing sheets, lending me sheets, or if I was going to have to buy sheets. I arrive, still unsure of the sheet situation, to discover that, indeed, she was providing me sheets. For a while...

So I have to pay $10 for the loan of the sheets, with the understanding that, when I'm free I'm going to buy my own "draps" for the bed. These include: two pillows, two strange-long-round-pillows, two bottom sheets, two stop sheets, and covers of various types.

"Draps" are, literally translated, sheets. But this covers a lot of confusing English terms (there are equally confusing French words that, frankly, I don't know) - fitted sheets, pillow cases, covers, mattress protector things, the whole shebang. While playing charades with my landlady, I went through each item and asked if I needed to buy it. I even looked up the words for pillows, pillowcases, and covers. I was certain, I knew what I needed to buy. So I go out and buy a bottom sheets, a couple of covers, and two pillows. Luckily, with the sales, all this isn't very expensive.

So today I returned the sheets, pillows, etc. to my landlady. She nodded sagely, but then started looking confused. I assume that this is because not everything is there - sheets and pillows for two beds takes up more than an armful and I hadn't brought everything back with me yet. I explain that I'm going back for the other pillows and my landlady asks me why. Thinking the answer to this question is obvious, ("I'm returning them") I was stumped.

She assumes that this is because I don't understand, and begins speaking rapidly in my direction and gesturing about pillows and sheets. She goes on to repeatedly ask me why I'm returning the coverlets - "You don't need them? Are you sure? Did you buy some? Why did you buy some?"

She then hands me one of the pillows back, sans pillow case. Confused and standing in the foyer of an apartment building, I try to explain to my landlady that I had bought most of these things already, and had outfitted my bed myself. She continues to press the pillow into my hands (remember she had originally given me two) and tell me I don't need to return the other, strange, long, round pillows.

But I have an extra pillow now?

***

In other news, my landlady did adamantly tell me she prefers my hair the way I'm wearing it today as opposed to usual. Usual is down, but today I'm styling "unwashed for three days and pulled back tight enough to satisfied a frumpy librarian." Apparently, it's working for me.

Monaco and other breakthroughs

Monaco was fabulous. It was an admittedly whirlwind tour, but I wouldn't have been able to afford anything if we had had enough time to go in places anyway... We also stopped for a tour of the Fragonard perfumerie where I bought my first real purfume! I'm a real lady now!

But, slightly more exciting (rather, a story I can tell without pictures since I can't connect my computer yet), coming home from the grocery yesterday, my French roommates invited me to have apertifs with them! I was also informed, as we all slowly got tipsy ("pompette") at six pm, that this is a regular occurance. I knew I liked these people.

It appears that one of the regular pasttimes in France, after skiing of course, is attempting to teach Americans how to say "frog." In French, the word is "grenouille," and is admittedly tricky. The French R is difficult enough for an anglophone, but preceeded by a G it's nearly impossible to pronounce. After the first syllable comes a string of vowels long enough to trip up any lazy-tongued American... It is, in a word, the reason Americans have accents. And is thus great fun for native speakers.

Next time it happens, I'm getting them to say "squirrel."

Everything else is well, aside from that one professor who likes us to sing in class.

Grocery Shopping

So I've discovered a new love. It's a cereal with nutella in each bite. And it's fabulous. (I have the breakfasting preferences of a six year old.)

But to accompany my new-found cereal love, I needed milk.

Milk is difficult to buy for a few reasons,

1) It's not refridgerated. It's got the little plastic seal thing you get on condiments on it, so I figure, like mayonnaise, it's safe to leave unrefridgerated until it's opened. It just makes it extremely difficult to find in the store.

2) Not anticipating the problem, I didn't look up skim, 2%, or other ways to denote milk fat... So, faced with the choice of Creme and Demi-Ecreme, I bought the latter and prayed I wasn't buying half-and-half.

3) It's good until March 17. Which doesn't really cause a problem in actually buying the milk, but it certainly threw me off. March 17??

So, minor difficulties aside, I'm the proud owner of a bottle of, I think, 2% milk that is happily sitting in my fridge and hasn't killed me yet. Success!

I'm off to eat lunch - a sandwich with my new favorite condiment - dijon mayonnaise. And maybe some nutella cereal to accompany it...

So I've been here a couple of days now. Which is long enough to realize that, second to learning the language, learning my way around the city will be a major skill (as will learning my way around a French keyboard). Aix is, however, stunningly beautiful.

It snowed here today, which was case enough for a front page headline reading "Snow! Marseille in a state of alert!" and the cancellation of two days of exams.

Testing... testing...

Hello?