To sum up Monday-Thursday, I would wake up, take the bus and a connecting bus to get to my institute then sit in class and learn. Then we would have lunch (which entailed us going to the city supermarket and buying food then eating on a curb because we didn't want to wait to eat our food. The walk back to the university was like a whole 5 minutes long) and come back and learn some more! After that I would go home and say I was going to nap and end up not napping and actually getting carried away in something else. Next I would watch various YouTube videos of cats, dogs, basketball, soccer, news, cooking videos (I don't discriminate) or read until I felt tired which was usually around 2:00-2:30. In the morning, I would wake up at 8:30 to be at the institute but 9:30.
On Wednesday a girl named Lyndsie and a boy named Matt from the US of A moved into my dorm area and that was nice. They're both cool cats. And that was the week...until today (Friday)...duh duh duh...
Let me preface this with Thursday: On Thursday there was a welcome/information meeting for the international students attending the college within the university that I am apart of. There was a nice lady reporter asking if anyone wanted to be interviewed for the paper about their experience. I didn't raise my hand, but don't you worry, Guy came over and passive aggressively "suggested' that I do it and represent my country and such about 4 times. I told him I thought my French wasn't good enough and he was like "Aww she speaks English! You're fine..." I hate being the center of attention but this lady seemed like she really needed people to interview. So I went up to the nice lady and told her that I would do the interview since only one other student volunteered and she asked for two. WELL FRIENDS, it was a blessing in disguise! You see, I thought the interview was going to take place right then and there, but no, it was going to happen on Friday. "Candice, why does this matter?" I'm glad you asked. You see, on that particular Friday all of the students in this immersion program were to give a 10-15 minute presentation on something they specialize in/are passionate about. This was to take place at 14:00. You know what else was to take place at 14:00? The interview. And that's how I got out of presenting a project in French in front of people who know French wayyyyyy better than me. I considered it a win. I know, I know, "but Candice, that experience would build your character and you would be a better person because of it." Let me respond to that with this: Every single time I open my mouth I am building character, if you're catching my drift.
After that blessing from the Lord, I was pretty okay with life.
Friday rolls around and I go to class as usual then leave during lunch to go to this interview. In the interview she asked me questions and I was blatantly honest. For example, she asked if I had heard of Limoges before studying abroad. I said no. She asked me what Americans where I lived tended to think of French citizens. I said that they are fashionable, skinny, rude and have good food...like baguettes (which is true by the way) BUT! I did say after that I have not experienced any of the rudeness that I was so heavily warned of. In fact, I have yet to encounter anyone who was anything less than lovely! (I have a few examples of this from today that I will talk about later too). Then she tells me that Limoges is actually considered to be one of the rudest cities which blew my mind because I have had Nothing but positive experiences! She also told me that Limoges is one of the safest cities in France. And I'd say about 45 seconds to a minute after she says this, I hear a scream and turn around to see a guy running and three guys chasing him. All 4 of them were booking it.
Out of the three guys running after this one guy, the one in the middle trips and front flips, lands on his feet and starts running again. Because of that, I thought maybe this was staged and some student is making a film for class, or these guys are making an intense video for YouTube or something. Nope. That guy was just super graceful because 3 seconds later they catch this guy running and proceed to punch him. His buddies come over to rescue him and one guy leaves the guy getting hit and comes over to confront one of the friends coming. This guy confronting the friend front kicks him so hard that he is now laying on the ground and continues to kick him until he gets up and they brawl. Meanwhile, There is a group of these 4 guys or so punching this one guy on the ground while another guy is being pinned to the ground and another guy is trying to pull someone off and ends up ripping his shirt. And it was one of those moments where you cannot turn away because you are in a slight state of shock. I remember thinking "someone needs to stop this!" and naturally I started contemplating what I could do. I came to the conclusion: nothing. I will just sit in my chair until they either fight it out, someone burly men intervene or the police come. They ended up fighting it out and a couple of the guys ran away and the rest of them walked back to where they were before this whole debocale broke out. They just walked back, in front of everyone who just witnessed what happened, like it was nothing. Then the police came and started questioning them and securing the area and such. I think what happen was that the initial guy running has stolen something from one of the men chasing him. I could be wrong, but that is what I pieced together. The lady interviewing me said that she had never seen or heard of anything like that every happening here before. Glad they waited for me to get here before Fight Club-bing in the middle of public *sarcasm*.
We finished the interview and I since it was now 16:09 I decided to go get my year long bus pass and stop wasting money on day passes and stop looking like a tourist. This is another example of everyone being lovely to me here in Limoges: I am waiting in line and a girl comes and asks me to fill out a paper and she starts explaining something but I don't understand and she could have gotten extremely frustrated with me but she was so patient and kind and tried explaining it slowly and in a way that I understood. Finally I got it. Then a minute or two later, this young girl who is probably 15 asked me if I needed help filling out my forum and I say yes. She speaks nice and slow for me and tells me what is suppose to go where. It was one of those encounters where you think "I really do love people." And on that note, early in the day someone asked me where I was from and I said "Texas but I go to school in Oklahoma" and they went *pew pew* and made their hands into little guns. It was super funny and I appreciated it a lot.
After getting my fancy bus pass, I walked home because it was beautiful day and I have been missing walking around the city. Every time I go walking I learn. see or experience something new. Once I got back to my dorm area I hear my named called and what do you know! It's Lyndsie! I asked her if she has gotten groceries yet and she says no so we decide to go get her some food! While we are walking to the supermarket we run into our other two partners in crime and voila! We all went to the supermarket together like one, big happy family.
That was pretty much my week/Friday. Tomorrow I plan on running, studying French with Lyndsie and possibly Hannah and reading. A lot. I might go to a museum as well or the public library. We shall see!
Side notes:
1)Denim on Denim is popular here in addition to cheetah and leather.
2) Supermarkets play really cool music! I found this song called Tie up the Tides by Quilt. Kind of has a retro vibe if you're interested.
3) The people working in public transportation (bus drivers, ticket counter workers, etc) are incredible and I appreciate them an enormous amount
Au revoir!
Candice
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