In a minute I'll start catching up on the past few days, but first, a note on the much-decried "French rudeness:"

It's a lie. Here in Lyon, at least. People have been, without exception, almost unrealistically nice - and this in the face of my utter mangling of their language. They'll repeat themselves for me with a smile, or even sprinkle in some English when they have it - so in other words, it's time for me to get rid of my asinine fear of transactions that will force me to speak, because even when I sound absurd it always seems that we both end up laughing together and miming or rephrasing so that I get the thing or the information that I need. No one seems to think I'm unintelligent for not being great at French, which is the total opposite of what everyone in the US seems to expect. Seriously, people here have been so unfailingly polite and friendly that it's almost unnerving. I literally have had no bad experience yet. I'm sure that can't last, but even so, it's impressive. Moral of the story: if you speak little or no French and still want to visit the country, skip Paris and come to Lyon. :)

My French is progressing, sort of. Or my understanding of French, at least. Interactions fall into one of several categories:
- Talking with other assistants. English, minimal German (more on this later), or very very small amounts of French (generally for terms that have no English equivalent or terms to do with our jobs that we haven't really seen translated (like "arrêté," or "contract"). Not learning anything there.
- Talking one-on-one with François. Probably 90% in English and 10% French (him speaking) and 99.9% English (me speaking). His English is so, so much better than my French that we just fall into it, not least because I tend to answer in English no matter what (just for now, I swear). I should ask him to speak French with me, but I know how frustrating it has to be to talk super slowly and repeat yourself every three sentences, so I haven't yet. Plus it's hard to convince myself to work that hard when I don't have to. :P
- "Talking" with François along with his friends. 95% French and 5% English (them); 5% French, 5% English and 90% listening without talking (me). I have no idea what impression they must have of me so far, and I worry that I must seem either bored or completely at sea. I'm neither; I'm happy to listen and work out the puzzle of what's going on, but right now things are still coming out more Spanish than French and I get kind of shy saying things to a whole group.
- Talking to strangers. Virtually all French (them); virtually all "French" (me). I seem, generally speaking, to get my point across - or close enough, anyway. This could be because I steer clear of anything complicated and use the foolproof trick of paying for things with large notes (20€ on a bottle of water, for example) to mask the fact that numbers scare me. This is really the only situation in which I speak any French, for the moment, aside from talking to Anaïs or Mr. Bargel (which I haven't done in a few days now). Anaïs is going to Nice for the weekend to watch American wrestling (yes, really - she's super excited, too) but maybe I'll see if we can get lunch when she gets back.


Okay, catching up. Days have been really full, so apologies if this is long. I'll try not to be too boring.

Sunday I met up with 6 or 7 of the other language assistants who were already in town and went to the zoo (which is pretty small, but free), then to a cafe. A good time, but nothing too noteworthy; mostly trading a lot of "what's your name, where are you from, where/what did you study," but it was nice. Afterward four of us got a drink (mostly because you can't get dinner as early as 6:30p) and then dinner at an Indian place in Vieux ("Old") Lyon. Jack is from the UK and did a year abroad in Mexico, Erin is from Boston, and Hannah is from Berlin (she's teaching German).

I spent basically all of Monday on the internet, trying to find a colocation (apartment with roommates). That would definitely be the best option for me if I can swing it. I can barely afford a place even with roommates on what I'm making - we'll take home something like 780€ after taxes, and people looking for roommates are mostly advertising places between 300 and 450€. I don't even know what a studio would cost, but I'm wary of going much higher than that range, especially since I'm still hoping to travel. On top of that, if it's your name on the lease, you have to have a French guarantor - even Hannah can't use her parents, even though they're in the EU. I could ask the Bargels, probably, but I'd like to avoid that if I can.

Anyway, François still didn't have internet at that point, and since the spotty network had disappeared from his apartment entirely I wound up going down the street to a cafe called "Food and Coffee." The two guys who work there are very sweet, if somewhat baffled by my "French." They didn't seem to care at all that I stayed for hours after ordering nothing but an espresso. (Which I did with mixed success. "Espresso" I can more or less pronounce; "double espresso" remains beyond me. It either comes out too much like the English version of the word, or too much like "doble" (Spanish), or else I guess just as nonsense. Oh well, I didn't really need the extra coffee anyway.) So now I've sent messages to a pretty good number of people who have advertised on the roommate-seeking website here (appartager.fr, which is a cross between "appartement" and "partager," "to share"). So far I've only heard back about one, which I'm going to see tomorrow, but I don't think I'm likely to take it - the guy speaks English and sounded nice and not at all creepy on the phone, but (unbeknownst to me until after I agreed to come see the place) he's in his 40s and lives with his teenaged son, which seems like it could get kind of messy. It's also kind of far from where I'm working, so not really ideal. But it's affordable, and I don't really have anything to lose from looking at the place, so I probably will go (and yes, I'm going to take someone with me).

Okay, that's it for now. There's a transit strike on right now (more on that next time), so François is getting a ride to work - and has invited the guy to 7:30a breakfast. I sleep on the couch, which means tomorrow is an early morning, which makes it past my bedtime. 'Night all.