June 11th – 17th
I’m very touristy here in France. Wednesday afternoon I went on another Institute trip to the castle of Chaumont-sur-Loire. Thursday afternoon I went to the Cathedral of St. Gatien (Cathèdrale de Saint-Gatien) and the Fine Arts Museum in Tours (Musée de Beaux-Arts). Then, Saturday, I went to the Puy du Fou, which is a French park which puts on circus-type shows (“spectacles”) about the history of France, from Roman times to the world wars.
Chaumont-sur-Loire
Chaumont hosts a garden festival every year, in which they invite landscape designers to design gardens all over the Chaumont grounds. This was one of them, a little water garden with mirrors at each end. This was my friends’ and my attempt at a mirror selfie with the garden. It kind of worked.
Going to the cathedral on Thursday was actually an accident. I had been planning to just go to the Fine Arts Museum, but because I have no sense of direction, I got lost and stumbled upon the cathedral instead. And it was an incredible surprise. I had known there was a cathedral somewhere in Tours, but people don’t really go to Tours for the cathedral, so I wasn’t expecting much from whenever I got around to visiting it. But here was a giant Gothic cathedral, rose window and all, absolutely dripping with stone decorations, basically appearing out of nowhere in a random Tours town square. And when I say giant, I mean giant. The ceilings were some of the highest I’ve ever seen. There was a side chapel every five feet, and every side chapel had a tomb or a relic or an altar. I almost didn’t believe the stained glass was as old as it is, because the windows were huge and the colors were so bright. I spent nearly an hour walking around it.
The Cathedral of St. Gatien
Inside the Cathedral of St. Gatien
This side chapel is dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. There’s a relic in that little gold monstrance. I don’t know what it is because it’s really small. St. Martin is a big deal in Tours because, well, he’s St. Martin of Tours.
The pipe organ, rose window, and people for scale.
The choir behind the cathedral. Technically it cost 3 euro to get into the choir, but I didn’t have any euro on me so the ticket lady let me in for free.
The towers of the cathedral as seen from the choir.
And then I did end up finding my way to the museum as well; when leaving the cathedral, I found a city map (my phone was long dead) and planned out my route home. I had taken barely two steps from the map when I walked directly into the museum. It was still an hour and a half before closing, so I went in and then spent an hour and a half walking around the museum.
As for my actual classes, this week has been the best week of classes so far. My new class focuses a lot on discussing and on oral presentation, which are two areas in which I can really use practice. I can also tell that my oral comprehension, which I’ve mentioned is abysmal, is improving very slightly. I went to see Finding Nemo (Le Monde de Nemo) at the movie theater with some friends on Friday, and I was actually able to follow more than 50% of the dialogue without much of a problem. To be fair, I’ve practically memorized the movie anyway, but that was still really a milestone for me.
I have had a couple of those funny-but-cringeworthy fiascos that come with trying to communicate in a language you don’t know very well, though. For example, earlier this week I went to a bakery. I didn’t yet know what I wanted, so when the baker came and asked me what she could get for me, I tried to tell her I was just looking at the moment. I realized later that I had been off by a preposition, and had actually said something closer to the connotations of “I’m just watching the pastries right now, thanks.”
Despite faux pas like these, though, I have noticed that in general my conversational French has improved. I speak slightly more fluidly and can comprehend people slightly better, although verb tenses other than simple past and present still mess with my head in conversation. I have also realized that my French vocabulary isn’t very extensive. I actually knew that already, but I guess I just never truly realized how much I used French/English dictionaries when writing papers, because my actual mental store of French words is pretty small.
Truthfully, that gets frustrating. In English, language usage is my thing. I’m that person who gets physically uncomfortable if someone uses the wrong form of “they’re/their/there,” and privately judges people really hard for using dangling modifiers and ending sentences with prepositions. I’ll legitimately spend time deciding which synonym of “angry” exactly fits my state of mind: am I irritated? Outraged? Indignant? Offended? In English, I’m eloquent. But in French, I am not. I mess up on grammar constantly. I often get stuck while trying to say what I really want to, and end up resorting to a far simpler and less expressive sentence, or just not saying anything at all. I have to keep reminding myself that I have nineteen years’ worth of experience with English, and only five years’ worth with French.
That being said, I love it here. I’ve been getting unreasonably panicky all week because my time here was almost half over (now it’s officially half over). But it’s been a great three weeks, and I’m really excited for the next three.