Parties, Papers, Professors

The girls makings the Nutella cake with coconut on top 

This week has been long and hectic, so I'm sorry for the delay in posting my blog. I will make this one super packed with pictures and exciting things! Last week was Marcelo's birthday (another one of my Brazilian friends), and we celebrated with a Nutella cake that Priscila and Bea made. We invited the other Brazilian boys and made a party of it! OH! And we made brigadeiro again. It's a Brazilian chocolate-type thing that takes a really long time to make. After you heat it up on the stove, you have to roll the chocolate into balls and then roll the balls in sprinkles. BEST FOOD EVER. I will teach everyone how to make it when I get back to the States. Our cake and brigadeiro was accompanied by Orangina, Coke, and random fruit juice that I needed to get rid of. For dinner we ate leftover sandwiches from an International Student Mtg that we had had earlier that day. Needless to say, I ate just cake for dinner since the sandwiches were salmon. I tried to layer them 

From left to right: Henrique Marcelo, Bea

with ketchup, but that didn't work out so well. The sandwiches French people eat are disgusting. Salmon, some sort of weird goopy sauce, and cheese. No ketchup, no normal mustard (just Dijon) and no mayo. I am definitely not cut out to live in France for an extended period of time. I love my Hidden Valley and Jiffy peanut butter. They do have barbecue sauce here though miraculously. Out of all the places to find barbecue sauce. It also takes literally two weeks to find the bacon. Come to find out, it is in a completely separate aisle from any other meats. I guess bacon isn't considered a meat here?

Our finished cake and brigadeiro

José, Pri, Bea, Wendell

So that's that for the birthday celebration. Not much happened this week other than the fact that I started classes for real. Last week was more of an insertion week. The professors taught class, but even if I missed a class or wanted to change to another course,  I could always find the notes and catch up. After a long week of changing courses, going to as many courses as possible, freaking out over a hard course, and finding one course too similar to my courses in America, I finally tacked down my academic schedule for the semester. At the beginning of the week, I went in thinking I wanted to take courses that seemed familiar to me. What I quickly found was that those courses had nothing to do with what I thought they would cover, so I decided to take a different approach. Instead of trying to find courses that would match up with my Emory courses, I took the opportunity to take courses that are not and probably will not be offered at Emory during my time there. I only get to study in France once, so why waste that time learning about subject fields concurrent with what I study in America? Why not branch out and explore different areas of Law? 

Dusk during my run

This week I also explored the city a bit. I wandered around some of the random bus lines that I have never been on before, and I went on a run through St Pierre (a park right down the road from my residence). The park is one of my favorite places in Amiens because it is very clean and organized. This is where the Medieval Fair was held, and it is much quieter without all the people lining the walkways and grassy areas. It is almost always rainy and cloudy in Amiens, so I only take pictures when the sun is out and it looks nice. I'm trying to create a nice picture of Amiens for all you tourists ;) That is really the only downside to the north of France. It is almost always overcast and dreary. I wouldn't mind it so much every once in a while, but I enjoy the sun too much to go without it for a whole week! The city itself really is quite nice. We've learned that Amiens Nord is the place to avoid at night. Actually, just don't ever go there. I live very close, if not actually in, Amiens Nord, so we all know to close our shutters at night and lock our doors. Never go out with less than groups of two either. But that's normal for any large city I think. It's common sense to not walk around as a young female in the middle of the night haha. 

One of the nice days in Amiens

Now back to my first week of classes : The most difficult part has been actually finding the classes. The professors change rooms and times, the schedule changes, the amphi is closed. So many things can happen, and the only way you will know about it is if you read every single piece of paper on the bulletin board. Thankfully I took a picture of the bulletin board, so I was able to follow the changes a little more easily, but I eventually got it all figured out. My LAST resort is having to ask the secretary, which I've done three times the past week. She is very nice, but it is difficult to follow directions sometimes. It is funny to talk to people in French when there is a big group of us because one person will hear one thing, another person will hear another part of the conversation, and we mash together everything we heard to figure out what we're supposed to do haha. The lecture halls are HUGE. They can pack maybe 250 students. Compared to Emory, that's...indescribable. It is hard to hear what the professor says at times, but they usually use a microphone. One professor this week did not use a microphone, and it was pointless for me to sit in the class because I heard nothing of what she said for the entire three hours. I heard "Suède" a lot, but that's about it. It should be an easier class for me because I have already learned many of the things, but it will be difficult to take notes if she does not use the microphone. I also think she has a Picardie accent, but I can't be certain.

Pri and I lost in the hallway

Men in Black

I also find their system of monitoring the buses interesting. Every so often there are these guys that board the buses who are cloaked in black suits (hence MIB), and they ask to see your bus card or ticket. Not only do they take your card, but they also scan it to make sure that it is valid. And they do this for every person on the bus. The first time it happened, I was so scared! I didn't know what was going on, and I was afraid I was going to get kicked off the bus! I finally looked over to see a lady pull out her card and have the man scan it, so I just followed suit. This has happened two times in the past week to me. They always seem to board the buses during the busiest times of the day (probably to catch the most people). I have never seen them kick anyone off, but I'm sure that's what would happen if someone didn't have their card or a ticket.

We still eat dinner together every night as a little family

One of my lecture halls

Two final things for my blog...AMERICAN SHUTDOWN. I saw this and thought it was funny. I needed to share it with the rest of the world. I hope everyone is doing okay and coping with their personal situations and how it affects you. I want everyone to know that the world is literally staring at America right now. I think the rest of France knew that my government had shut down before I even knew. It's become a big joke among the international students, one that I have to laugh at. It's interesting to see how involved these other countries are with American politics, and how much they look to the United States for entertainment.

And also, a good Brazilian song for you all to dance to. I can sing the chorus as of now :) My Portuguese lessons are going quite well, and my Brazilian friends are quick to correct me on my Portuguese from Portugal (since it is a bit different from that of Brasil). Hopefully this video works. If not, the song is called Vamo Apostar (Let's make a bet). I listen to it everyday on my way to school, so you can just imagine me as a true Frenchy with my headphones in, swaying back and forth on the bus...listening to Portuguese music hahahaha.