Monday, 15 September 2014

Le début du semestre

Bon soir mes amis! Comment ça va? Moi, je suis superb! Depuis mon dernière poste, j'ai été très active: j'ai fini ma semaine d'orientation, j'ai commencé mes cours, j'ai voyagé à Dieppe et Rouen et j'ai eu trois pique-niques avec mes nouveaux amis ici. Aussi, j'ai contacté mes amis qui habitent dans des autres partes d'Europe, comme Belgique, Angleterre et la Suisse et je fait des plans pour les visiter. Je me sentis établie ici et j'ai hâte de faire beaucoup de choses ce semestre. Comme j'ai dit à les autres filles canadiennes, TESEFUF (Tu es seulement en France une fois) alors je veux faire mon séjour ici à Tours et en France la crème de la crème! 

Translation: Good evening my friends! How are you? Me, I am superb! Since my last post, I have been very busy: I finished my orientation week, I started my courses, I traveled to Dieppe and Roeun and I had three picnics with my new friends here. As well, I contacted my friends who are living in other parts of Europe, such as Belgium, England and Switzerland and am making plans to visit them. I am starting to feel settled here and I am looking forward to doing many things this semester. Like I said to the other Canadian girls, you are only in France once so I want to make my stay in Tours and in France the best of the best! 

So backtracking to where I left off last time, the rest of my orientation week was pretty great. On the Thursday, I went to a meeting for a program the university is offering called Service Learning. In this program, exchange and international students are paired up with a French student and the pairs meet on a weekly basis to teach each other their native language. For example, I would be paired with a French speaker who wants to learn French and we would talk for an hour, talking for half an hour in each language. Over the course of the semester, the pairs need to accumulate 20 hours of conversation and then each person writes an essay and participates in a group discussion about what it was like to learn and teach a new language through conversation. A bonus of this program is that we can get 3 ECTS credits for completing the requirements. I have already talked to my academic advisors here and at Bishop's and will be participating in this course.

After the meeting, I went with two German exchange students, Anna and Maren to one of the school cafeterias for lunch. We had picked up our student cards that morning meaning we were finally able to start accessing things such as the library, the printers and most importantly, the cafeteria. As well, the cafeterias here are a really great option for students - for just 3 euros and 20 cents, you get a bun, an entrée (a salad, a small charcuterie plate, etc.), a fruit or a dessert, a cheese or a yogurt and the plate of the day, which is either a fish/veggie option or a meat dish with vegetables and a starch on the side. After you get your plate, you sit down  and there are water carafes on each table. The meal was pretty good and was a great value - there is definitely no place else where you can get that much food for 3 euros. In addition to the food being great, the company was great too! Anna and Meron are both super, super nice and it was a good challenge for me to speak in French with them throughout the meal. 

Later that night, there was an orientation event at the town hall. The town hall here is beautiful, inside and out - the town halls in Canada do not compare! At the event, the mayor of Tours and the president of the university gave speeches and all the guests were given champagne! Never in my life did I think I would be drinking champagne in a town hall in Europe but c'est la vie! Unfortunately, I was not able to understand majority of either speech so good thing I'm pretty sure it was just a "welcome to Tours" kind of speech. At least, that's what I think. I don't really have any idea. 


On Friday, I met with my academic advisor in the afternoon. Her name is Carine and she is lovely! She helped me pick all of my courses and get my "emploi de temps" (timetable) all set up. Two big differences here with courses is that 1) not all courses are worth the same amount of credits and 2) not all courses start at the same time. In accordance with the Bishop's rules, I have to take 30 ECTS credits and since each course is worth about 3 or 4, I had to do a lot of picking and choosing. As well, students here are encouraged to pick many courses, try them out and then choose at the end of the month. For someone like me who just wants a definitive schedule, this has been a difficult adjustment as I have still not started all of my courses! I am hoping to have things finalized by the end of the week but as I am quickly learning, nothing here ever really goes as planned. 

After my meeting with Carine, I returned to CUEFFE to get my results for my language test. I am happy to report that despite my nerves and endless hours of stress, I received level B1.2! I really do not understand what that means but if you want more information, I encourage you to check wikipedia as that is what I used. Anyway, I was very stressed after I took the test that I would not achieve a level that would allow me to take courses at CUEFEE so I was very happy when I achieved even higher than I initially expected! To celebrate, I went out with a group of German exchange students for ice cream followed by drinks at la Guingette! 

So in typical exchange student fashion, the only club I have joined here is AUDICEE, or l'Association Universitaire de Dialogue InterCulturel plus les Étudiants d'Échange, (the exchange student club) and on Saturday, AUDICEE organized a tour for exchange students around Tours. Even though I had been on the bike tour and had been leaving here for a week, I still need all the help I can get with directions so I was an active listener for the whole tour. It was very helpful and informative and we learned everything from historical facts about Tours to fun places to hang out. After the tour, we were quizzed on the information presented and I am pleased to say that I was able to comprehend and answer some of the questions!


Later that night, I had my first potluck picnic with a big group of my new exchange student friends. The girls who organized the picnic wanted it to be an authentic French picnic, meaning we had to bring items such as baguettes, cheese and wine! I went to the market that morning and bought some fresh fruit to bring. There was a huge assortment of cheeses, crackers, spreads, breads, wine and dessert at the picnic and the evening was a lot of fun! We spread our picnic out on the river bank of the Loire and ate, drank and chatted the night away (in French, of course). There were students from Spain, Germany, Canada, Columbia and probably some other countries that I am forgetting but it was so cool that the one thing connecting us was our French! With great food and great company, it was a really, really nice evening. 


Sunday, there was the Tours annual braderie. Essentially, it was a huge street market for which the main shopping road, Rue Nationale was shut down and was full of street vendors all the way down. All of the stores along the road had stands set up on the sidewalks and there also local craft and food vendors set up in between the shops. I think the entire town of Tours was out shopping that day! In between shopping around, we took a break to go wading in the Loire because it was such a hot day. In classic Erica fashion, when I tried to take the bus home that night, my friend Anna and I got on the bus going in the opposite direction so we got to go on a not-so-brief tour of the town next to Tours. Ooopps....


Monday was the first official day of classes, however none of my Monday classes started so instead, I just met my friends at the caf for lunch. After that, I went on a walk through the local botanical gardens with fellow Canadian exchange students Danielle, Rachel and Samantha. The gardens are right behind my residence and are open to the public every day of the week. In addition to flowers, there are also animals, such as tortoises, wallabies and goats. A strange assortment, I know. Later that night, there was a movie night in my residence and we watched The Butler (in French) and two of my friends came over to watch with me. But then it was time to rest up for my first day of classes!


Tuesday, I had my first class and it was French to English translation for exchange students. It was a very neat class and I am really looking forward to taking it this semester. I really like that it is just for exchange students because it takes away a lot of the pressure from being in class with native French speakers. In addition, a lot of my exchange student friends are in the class which makes it more enjoyable as well. After class, Rachel and I went to the caf for lunch and then that night, AUDICEE organized a soirée at a local bar for all the exchange students. I went over with Anna, Sam and Alisha and we met up with our other friends at the bar. Unfortunately, the last bus home was leaving at 11:40 so we could not stay too late but it was a still fun. And I just saw on Facebook that we are having another soirée tomorrow night! 



Wednesday, I went to a local market in the morning and then went to the caf for lunch. I had planned to go alone and read my French magazine but I ran into my resident-referent and we ended up talking over lunch for an hour and a half. I learned that the resident-referents here are volunteers! They receive no pay or compensation for putting on activities for us! And if there are no students in a rez that want to be a referent, the residence doesn't have one. This made me feel very fortunate that I chose a rez with 3 referents and they are awesome! I also learned that my referent is looking at applying to Université de Sherbrooke for her masters! How small world is that?

Wednesday afternoon I had a class at CUEFEE. On Monday night, I received an email from the secretary of CUEFEE saying that there was a discrepancy with my test results and I could either be level B1.2 or B2 and I had the option to try both levels. Wednesday I tried B1.2 langue orale and I found it a bit too easy. However, over the course of the week I tried langue ecrite and oral for both levels and I am still super undecided!! B1.2 is too easy and B2 is very challenging! However, if I take B2 I can also have Fridays off. Decisions, decisions! I have until Thursday to make up my mind and I am still so unsure! 

Wednesday night, I met up with my friend Rachel for coffee. Well, she had coffee and I had hot chocolate. I have noticed that the times I get the most homesick are when I am alone in my room so I simply sent her a text saying "let's meet up. I don't want to be alone in my room." She happily agreed to keep me company and we went to Place Plummereau, the hang out hot spot for students and young adults in Tours. We had a really nice evening and stayed out way later than expected. But thank you to Rachel for keeping me company and for keeping my homesickness away. 

Thursday, I learned how to do laundry, which was a big deal! I had to ask the residence cleaning lady for assistance but I felt so accomplished bringing my clean laundry up to my room! I then met up with a group of exchange students for a picnic in the botanical gardens. It was really, really fun - great food, great company and a great location! I had a class that afternoon and then I went to play laser tag with my residence. I was nervous to go, but with all my experience from LaserMania at home, I felt pretty confident that I could figure out French laser tag. As expected, it was exactly the same and I had about the same skill level, aka no skills whatsoever, but it was still really fun and great way to get to know some more people in my residence. I am still really shy when talking to native French speakers but I am now starting to recognize faces in the halls and in the caf, which is making my residence feel a bit more like home. 


Friday, I traveled to Rouen to see my friend Gaby, from Bishop's, who is studying at the NEOMA International Business School. I used a site called BlaBlaCar to find a ride, which is essentially the France version of KangaRide, the carpool site I use in Quebec. I am happy to report that my ride got me to Rouen safe and sound! It was about a 3 and a half hour trip and I arrived in Rouen at about 9:00. Gaby is studying in Rouen with her friend from high school Maggy and they live in residence together. One thing that is very different about her school from mine is that all her classes are in English so therefore all the students there speak English. As well, she lives in an international student residence so has floor mates from Canada, Ireland, Japan, Germany and a whole bunch of other places but everyone there speaks English. Her rez is a lot more similar to rez in Canada, with everyone in each other's room, talking and hanging out, unlike here where everyone keeps to themselves. Gaby picked me up at the train station and then we went back to her rez for dinner. We had planned to go to bed but then ended up going out with a bunch of Gaby's friends in rez to an electric dance party. What is an electric dance party, you ask? Well, the one we went to had a DJ playing techno music for a dance floor that was illuminated by crazy lights. It was so silly, but Gaby, Maggy and I had a great time dancing Bishop's-style in the middle of the French dance floor! After the electric dance party, Gaby and I skyped our housemates at school who were having a birthday dinner for Elizabeth at my house in Lennoxville. It was so nice to be a part of the birthday celebrations. Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth!! 

Saturday, Maggy, Gaby and I travelled to Dieppe for the International Kite Festival. Dieppe is a little seaside town on the coast of France and is about 45 minutes from Rouen. The kite festival was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were kites tied down to the beach all the way long the shoreline and they were in all kinds of shapes and colours. There were circular ones that turned in endless circles, there were animal shaped ones, etc. etc. As well, we watched an exhibition of kite performances, in which people moved their kites around to music. The coolest thing by far was the synchronized kite performances. I cannot even imagine the time, effort and skill required to do kite synchro! 


In addition to the kite festival, we checked out the local market, visited the Canadian War Memorial and hiked up a small mountain to visit a chateau. We also walked out to the end of a fishing pier and I went swimming in the ocean! The water was a bit chilly but I did not care! Oh but I forgot to mention that this beach was not your typical sand beach. Instead, it was completely covered in stones, like the rocks people put in their gardens and have instead of lawns. This made it a bit painful on the feet, but was Maggy said, at least we did not get any sand in our shoes!




Sunday, Gaby made my Nutella crepes for breakfast and then we hit up a local market in Rouen. We bought cheese, muffins, raspberries and apple cider and then walked through a flee market to find baguettes and desserts. We took our picnic spread and ate in a park in front of a castle-like church. After lunch, we walked through Rouen, admiring the beautiful architecture and then she gave me a tour of her campus. We then boarded the bus and headed back to the train station so I could catch my carpool home. I was lucky enough to get a ride with the same guy who drove me on Friday so after saying goodbye and thank you to Gaby, I hit the road for the 3 hour drive home. 

Today, I had my first oral translation class and while I think it will be very challenging, I really like the prof and the work we have to do. 80% of our final mark comes from our final exam session though which is very nerve wracking!! I also had my first sports class today, Cross Fit and it was a lot of fun. Who would have guessed that words such as jumping jack and burpee are also used in French? After Cross Fit, there was a pick up soccer, no pardon me, football game in the field behind my residence so I joined in for a little while. I forgot how popular soccer/football is here aka everyone here is really good at it, so I spent most of the time trying to stay out of the way of the play. I did make some good plays (in my opinion) so I was not completely useless. Also today, I received an email from a girl named Jade, who is my "French buddy" for the semester. I signed up for this program that pairs exchange students with local students to help us foreigners with settling in, our school work and anything else we might need. We have made plans to meet on Wednesday night and I can't wait! 

So as you can see, I am keeping quite busy here but that's quite alright with me. Right now, I really need to find time to sit down and plan out my semester and try to figure out my traveling and visits and all that fun stuff. It seems like every time I turn around I find a different friend to go visit! Also, in about 19 days my grandparents are coming to visit me and I am so excited for that! If anyone else wants to come visit, you know where to find me! As for now, it is my bedtime as I must rest up for another exciting week to come! Who knows what I will have done by this time next week! 

À bientôt! 

Avec amour, 

Erica xoxoxoxoxoxoxo 

Thursday, 4 September 2014

Bienvenue à la vie à Tours!

Bonjour tout le monde! J'espère que vos premiers jours de l'école étaient fantastiques et n'étaient pas stressants! C'est triste que l'été soit presque fini mais nous avons des nouvelles adventures pour cette année scolaire. Pour moi, j'ai eu un été incroyable et je veux remercier tous les gens que j'ai rencontré et vu à Disney World, à Camp Wenonah et chez moi pour toutes les mémoires. Maintenant, je commence ma aventure prochaine à Tours et je suis très excitée (et un peu nerveuse, bien sûr). Il y a une semaine depuis je suis arrivée en France et pour la plupart, j'ai une bonne expérience. Je rencontre des nouvelles personnes chaque jour et mon français est améliorant avec toute ma pratique ici. Cependant, je sais qu'on veut lire mes aventures en anglais alors ici une traduction:

Hello everyone! I hope that your first days of school were fantastic and not too stressful! It is sad that summer is almost over but we all have new adventures for this school year. For me, I had an incredible summer and I want to thank all the people that I met and saw in Disney World, at Camp and at home for all of the wonderful memories. Now, I am starting my next adventure in Tours and I am very excited (and a bit nervous, of course). It has been one week since I arrived in France and for the most part, I am having a good experience. I am meeting new people every day and my French is improving with all my practice here. However, I know that most of you want to read about my adventures in English so this was your translation! :) 

Alrighty, so the last time you heard from me I was in the airport in Toronto on my way to what feels like the other side of the world (In case you were wondering, the exact opposite side of the world from Ancaster is a point in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia). My mom and I flew to Paris over night and landed at the Paris airport at the local time of 8am (so 2am EST). They served us breakfast on the plane, however they served it at Paris time 7am meaning my mom and I ate breakfast at 1am our time. Needless to say, we were a bit jet lagged for our first few days here.  Once we landed, we went through customs, collected my two huge suitcases and hopped on the train to Tours. It was a 2 hour train ride here with a connecting train at the stop prior to Tours, however there were only 5 minutes between our two trains and they were on complete opposite tracks so we missed the first train. Luckily, we were able to get on the next train to Tours 45 minutes later. Once we arrived in Tours, the journey was still not over - we had to take a cab to the head office of my residence and then take the bus to my actual residence. So by the time we finally found my residence room I was ready to try out my bed.

Further complications arose at the residence office. At the start of August, I had my dad mail in my residence file with a whole bunch of signed papers and information and such. However, when I got to the residence office, the ladies there had not received it. According to my dad's tracking receipt, it had gotten here so we had no idea what to do. Luckily, they had received my confirmation deposit so they just had me resign the residence contract and pay my first two months rent. After I FINALLY got my keys, my mom and I took the bus over to my new home on rue Hélène Boucher, picked up my bed linens, bathroom kit and kitchen kit and got settled into my home for the semester.

After setting up my room with the few possessions I have (the total opposite from when I arrived to residence at Bishop's), we went over to the International Relations office so that I could check in, fill out some paperwork and be formally welcomed to the university. As a bonus, in the office, there was a collection of things that former exchange students had left for incoming students, like pillows, pots, pans, dishes, etc. and we were allowed to take some for our rooms. I was able to snag a kettle, hangers, a colander and some cups. 

After checking in and bringing my new home goods back to my room, my mom and I checked into our hotel in Tours, Hôtel du Manoir and went out for dinner to a little restaurant called Le Souris Gourmand. The cheese there is so good! Once we finished eating, the chef came out to our table to talk to us and when I said that I was an exchange student here for the semester, he said that if I ever needed anything I could come visit him at the restaurant. So don't worry everyone, the chef at the mouse restaurant is watching over me in this foreign country! 

Friday, I took care of some other things such as setting up a French bank account and getting a French SIM card for my cell phone. Who knew that setting up a bank account could take two hours?? As well, I think I killed a small forest with all the paperwork they had my fill out! The SIM card on the other hand was the simplest thing I have ever done in my life. There was a little machine in the store with a touchscreen and all I had to do was select the plan I wanted, select the size of SIM card I had and out the bottom came a SIM card. And phone plans here are so cheap! For 20 euros a month, I have unlimited texting and calling in France and unlimited calling to landlines at home and 2GB of data.  Once that was all done, my mom and I got back on the Train and returned to Paris! 

My weekend with my mom in Paris was absolutely fabulous! However, figuring out the metro to get there was a bit confusing. Our hotel, Hôtel Cécilia was right by the Arc de Triomphe and also just two streets over from the Champ Élysées, a big shopping street in Paris. After checking in, we went out to a French café for dinner, where we had crêpes, red wine and crème brulée. Saturday, we went straight to where every tourist in Paris goes, the Eiffel Tower. We climbed the stairs of the first two floors and then took the elevator to the third floor. However, on the second floor we had to wait for an hour to get a ticket to go in the elevator to the third floor. We almost gave up hope on getting to the top but we persevered and I am so glad we waited it out because the view from the top was incredible! Definitely a sight to see!
Bottom of the Tower! 

Top of the Tower!
After the Eiffel Tower, I was having some problems with my phone so went to the phone store in Paris and then we walked through a ritzy shopping district in search of a tea salon. The first place we went looking for actually did not exist so we went to our second choice, Angelina's which is apparently world famous for their hot chocolate and desserts. So, of course, we had to order their specialties and OH MY GOD I think their hot chocolate is just melted down pieces of chocolate. It was so rich and the desserts were so good!! No wonder it has been visited by celebrities such as Coco Chanel. After stuffing ourselves with chocolate and sugar, we walked all the way along la Seine back to the Champs Élysées and our hotel, got dinner at an Italian restaurant and then called it a night. 
Angelina - le salon du thé
Du chocolat chaud et des mont-blancs! 
Quick stop at the Louvre! 
Sunday. we climbed the Arc de Triomphe which was also really neat. The Arc sits in the middle of a roundabout with 12 points of entry, all of which you can see from the top. All the roads coming in resemble a giant star. We also noticed that lots of buildings in Paris have gardens on their roofs. After descending the Arc, we took the metro over to the Sorbonne, a giant university in Paris that is considered to be the "Harvard of Europe." Unfortunately, the main iconic building was under construction due to water damage so we were unable to appreciate its full beauty but it was still a sight to see. However, we did encounter some interesting art work (see photo below). Following that, we walked through the Luxembourg Gardens. Since it was a Sunday, there were a lot of families lounging in the park but something interesting was no one had any type of snack! No coffee, tea, chips, etc. I guess that, and all the walking they do here is what keeps the French so skinny! 

Top of the Arc de Triomphe


Les Jardins de Luxembourg!
Another fun fact about France is that almost everything is closed on Sundays. Unfortunately, that meant that the shopping district we wanted to visit was closed. Instead, we went to another well known area, Le Marais, and did some window shopping since everything in the boutiques was way above our budget! Le Marais is in the middle of a Jewish neighbourhood and for some reason, everyone there was lined up at several different places for falafel sandwiches. The mob mentality got the best of us and we ended up having falafels before heading back to the Champs Élysées to shop and grab our last dinner in Paris. 

Monday morning, I said a tearful goodbye to my mom at the Paris train station before heading back to Tours. I accidentally got on the first class car so when the attendant came around to check tickets, he made me transfer cars. Oops. In my defence, I did not see a sign, in English or French so I just thought I was on the luxury train. Upon my return, it was the start of Orientation Week or, La semaine d'orientation at UFR. Monday afternoon, there was a welcome presentation for all the new students. Of course, it was all in French so I did not understand too much of it but I was lucky enough to meet a group of exchange students from Wilfred Laurier University (and one from SFU) so I made some friends who spoke English to spend the afternoon with. I then returned to my residence to go to the "pot du bienvenue" where I met my "résident-référents" (residence assistants) and a few other students in my building. However, the room was very noisy and there were a lot of francophones so it was quite difficult for me to have any sort of conversation with the people there so I did not stay for too long. I felt awful because I really wanted to meet other people from my building but I was just not able to communicate. 

Tuesday, I went to the Centre Universitaire d'Enseignement du Français aux Étudiants Étrangers (CUEFEE) to take a language placement test for my level of French. It was more difficult than I was expecting, with an oral comprehension component and a written expression component and I am quite nervous to get my results tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed that I achieved the level I need to take course at the centre! After the test, there was a place to buy our student bus passes and in the line, I met another student from SFU and one from Australia and ended up going for lunch with them. Later that afternoon, I took part in the "Fac à Vélo" which I originally thought was just a bike tour around Tours but was wrong. It was a bike race around Tours! We were divided into teams of 4 or 5 people within our faculties and given a map and a route to follow. Along the route, there were places we had to go to get stamps on our team's "passport." I was on a team with one of the girls I met from Laurier, Megan, a German exchange student and a first year French student. The race was a lot of fun though unfortunately I was not much help at the stations with quizzes and crossword puzzles. However, I did volunteer myself to ride through a pylon course wearing googles that simulated riding a bike after drinking alcohol. I think I hit every pylon along the way...  The race also showed me how big Tours and how big UFR are. The city itself is divided by two rivers into North Tours, Central Tours and South Tours and UFR has 10 faculties each with their own campus somewhere in the city. I am a part of the Lettres et Langues faculty and I think that just my faculty is twice the size of the entire Bishop's population! 


Wednesday, I ran some errands in the morning, including picking up my student card and finally finding the grocery store!! My mini fridge is now stocked! In the afternoon, there was a little club fair  and in classic exchange student fashion, I have joined the Exchange/International Student club. After the club fair, we all thought that there was some party down on the river bank of the Loire river however, it turns out it was just a suggestion to go to the little bars down there and there was no actual organized activity. However, there was a little "Battle of the Bands" type competition between the faculty of medicine and the faculty of pharmacy which was fun to watch! However, can we please pause for a minute and appreciate that the two faculties are both so large that they each have their own band?? 

Today has been pretty relaxed. I went for a run this morning and in typical Erica fashion, got lost trying to find my way back. Luckily for me, all of the bus stops have maps at them so I was able to find my way back. I went to a presentation for a course being offered at the university called Le Programme Service Learning. For this course, exchange/international students are paired up with a French student to meet weekly and converse in the two different languages. For example, I would be paired with a French student and we would meet for an hour and talk for half an hour in French and half an hour in English. We can get credit for this course and I have already been given approval from my prof at Bishop's to take the course! After that, I went with my friend Anna, an exchange student from Germany to get her student card and then I went with her and a friend from her university to one of the UFR cafeterias for lunch. Check out this deal - for just 3 euros and 20 cents, we got an little appetizer (salad, coleslaw, lentils, etc.), a hot meal, a cheese or yogurt and a dessert. I think I had more vegetables today at lunch than I have had since arriving in France! 

Ok I know what you are thinking and yes so far I am the typical exchange student who only hangs out with other exchange students. BUT since some of them are not from an English speaking country I still do have to speak French when I talk to them! I am hoping that once classes start I will meet some French students and in one week, my friend Marie who I worked with in Disney will return to the city so I will have a local friend. However, having some Canadian friends has been very helpful for settling in and adjusting to life so far away from home. And I am slowly starting to compile a list of places I want to travel and people I want to visit. I just learned today that a friend I used to skate with in Ancaster with is currently living in Lyon so I cannot wait to visit her! I also have some friends in various parts of the UK so I am excited to go over there. Tonight, there is a welcome speech from the mayor at the town hall and tomorrow I pick my courses, meet with my academic advisor and get my language placement test results. I am also going to sign up for a host family program, in which I am paired with a family in Tours to visit once a week to "experience the Tours lifestyle." 

All in all, things are going pretty well here. The communication barrier is sometimes hard and I go to bed every night with an extremely exhausted brain but I know that this is going to be the experience of a lifetime so I am doing my best to try new things every day. Yes I do get homesick sometimes but I think once classes start and my life feels a bit more organized I will feel more settled. And my grandparents are coming to visit me in a month so I cannot wait for that! Now, I must get back to doing exchange student things so I wish you all a wonderful upcoming weekend and I will talk to you soon!

À bientôt! 

Avec amour, 

Erica xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Monday, 1 September 2014

The Perfect End to the Perfect Summer

Bonjour de Tours! I am all moved into my new residence here in Tours! However, before I begin documenting my new adventure, here is the post summarizing the rest of my summer that I wrote in Pearson Airport last Wednesday! 


Hello from Pearson Airport (again)! In just one hour my mother and I will be leaving the continent and flying across the Atlantic to my home for the next 4 months – FRANCE! If you avert your eyes to the top of this page, you can see that I have already changed the title of my blog as for this semester; this blog will no longer be about my life at Bishop’s but instead will detail my life at l’Université Francois Rabelais in Tours, France. So buckle your seatbelts and follow me as I begin my next exciting adventure! Allons-y!

The last time you heard from me I had just returned from the most magical place on Earth, Disney World. It has been about 3 weeks since then and in typical Erica Zucker fashion, I did not take a day of rest before I went up to Camp Wenonah for the last three weeks of my summer. And what a great three weeks it was! Despite the car troubles on the way up, we made it in good time and I immediately got myself settled into the brand new tabin in the Leadership Village. I was a bit sad to find out that two of my best friends at camp, Sara and Hannah were away in Algonquin Park on POLARIS trips but I was greeted by a ton of other coworkers from last summer, returning campers and of course, my little sister. I arrived on a great day too as the next morning was the sleep-in Sunday brunch! Do I have good timing or what? Unfortunately, there was no sleep-in for me and I stole my sister’s sleep-in from her too as I used her as my victim to do my Bronze Cross recertification in the morning. I am happy to report that I passed, though I did have to switch my brain back to the Canadian standards as opposed to what I was using in Disney World.

For the first week that I was up at Camp, I was a floater, meaning I jumped in wherever and whenever help was needed. For example, I was thrown into a parade, playing the role of Kim Possible.  I lifeguarded, I made giant bubbles and later in the week, I was made executive assistant to my coworker Oliver who was planning the camp theme day. For this day, regular camp programming is stopped and the whole day is centred around the theme, which in this year’s case was WenonahCon aka a comic book convention. I helped the counsellors in training (WCITs) make costumes and signs and decorations and I helped Oliver make powder paint. For anyone wondering, powder paint is what they use at the Run or Dye or Colour Me Rad runs and it is corn starch, water and dye. First, we mixed the ingredients. Next, we spread it out on baking sheets to dry. Then, we were supposed to put it in the blender but of course, both camp blenders were broken so Oliver and I had to grind it all by hand. It was a very, very long night.

Lord Somers Day Parade 
On Theme Day, I dressed up as Wonder Woman and was in charge of running the Interactive Video Game station, which was a game station at the beach. Different cabin groups rotated through a series of stations through the morning and then there was a camp wide game in the afternoon, where campers had to run around and get autographs of the different celebrities attending WenonahCon. It was then my job to count all the collected autographs and figure out the winning cabin. The oldest boys cabin was the winner and overall, Theme Day was a huge success!

For my second week at Camp, I was a head counsellor for Camp Kivita, which is a charity organization that brings up a group of campers who are all post-organ transplant to Wenonah. I worked with this group last year, counselling the youngest girls’ cabin and I was assigned to the same age group again this year. I had 6 campers return from last year and had 5 new ones, aged 7-10. In addition, I had two older Kivita volunteers, two fantastic WCITs, Rachel and Maddy and a second staff, Laura. Wenonah also brought up a former staff member, Dan to head the Kivita program, as it is somewhat different from the regular camp program. Some of the programming has to be altered to meet the medical needs of the campers but aside from a few minor changes we run it like a traditional introductory week program. As cabins, we rotated through a set of ten activities, had three cabin choices, had several Kivita programs and participated in some all camp activities. Unfortunately, two of my campers and one of my volunteers got sick and had to leave camp and one of my campers left early to go to the One Direction concert but all in all it was a great week. Lucky for me, my little girls LOVED Disney, especially singing Disney songs, so I bonded with them over princesses, castles, Frozen songs, etc. At the final campfire we sang Let it Go as a cabin and it was one of my favourite moments of the whole summer.



For my third and final week at Wenonah, I was the second staff in Hawthorn for the 4B program. Laura and I had a cabin of 10 girls, aged 11-13. It was my first time counselling teenagers so I said to them on the first day that I was sorry in advance if I treated them like they were younger than they were. It was very different not having to pour their juice, walk them to the bathroom, remind them to wash their hands, etc. but of course I still did all of that, even if they did not need it. What was neat about the 4B intro program is that the campers are there for the Wenonah Games. The games are our camp Olympics and everyone in camp is divided into three teams, with families all being on the same one.  Lauren, Jamie and I are on Aki, the green team and I have to say, this year’s games were probably my favourite to date. I participated in many events, including the staff triathlon, staff ping pong, the Eco Challenge and the Mickle Island Canoe Race. I ran events as well, including ping pong, tetherball and the camp classic Greasy Watermelon. The best part of the games for me was getting to do some events with my brother and sister. I watched them do the camper triathlon, in which they crossed the finish line holding hands.  I did the Eco Challenge with Lauren and we learned that neither of us could strike a match. I got to paddle in a boat in the canoe race with Jamie and we ended up coming second overall. In the end, Aki ending up winning the August Games, which has only happened one other time in my 13 years at Wenonah. I think I have to give some of our victory credit to my mom, who sent Lauren, Jamie and me very impressive care packages, filled with green merchandise and Gatorade energy chews. So thanks, mom, we could not have done it without you!


The Games were a great way to end my summer. However Camp does not end with the Games, so there were still more memorable moments to follow. For those who do not know, the camp owner is the husband of one of my mom’s housemates from university. Her 3 daughters (and niece and nephew) attend the camp, as well as the daughters of two of my mom and her other housemates. Together, all of us children call ourselves the Queen’s babies or sometimes ”the cousins.” At the closing campfire on the last night of camp, my brother, sister and I sang a song with the other Queen’s babies, something we have been trying to organize for years and finally put together this summer. Despite the lack of musical talent that I personally bring to the table, I think that our performance went really well. I only wish that all of our moms were there to share the moment with us.

Saturday I was on bus duty so I was up and moving just as early as my campers in order to get all of my stuff on to the bus to Vaughan Mills Mall. However, before the bus left, we had one more Camp tradition to uphold. Each session of camp ends with a giant hug circle in which everyone in camp hugs everyone in camp. One thing that everyone looks forward to each year is watching Jeff give the very first hug because he always has a special reason for choosing whom he does. This year, it was my brother, sister and I who shared the first hug and I could not have asked for two better people to share it with. It was a truly special moment to give them a group hug at the circle because as I had said to Jeff the night before, one of the reasons I love camp is because I get to spend time with my family. The three weeks I was up at camp was the longest period of time I have spent with Lauren and Jamie this year and I am so thankful for every moment I got to share with them. 


Once the hug circle was over, myself along with three other staff members and 60 or so campers boarded the bus and left camp. We dropped the campers off at Vaughan Mills, dropped another 7 off at Pearson airport and then drove back up to camp for the staff banquet. As usual, the food was delicious and the night ended in tears after all the staff awards were given out and the final slideshow of the summer was played. For the second time that day, I boarded the bus for Vaughan Mills Mall and officially left Camp Wenonah for another year.


My last week at home flew by faster than I could ever have imagined. Sunday, my mom, Jamie, Lauren and I went out for breakfast before Lauren went back up to Camp to work for the last week of the summer. I spent the rest of the day unpacking and getting organized to pack for France. Monday and Tuesday I ran errands, including getting a new phone and compiling all the necessary paperwork to leave the country. My time in Canada ended with a huge surprise – Terri and my dad threw me a going away party on Tuesday night and my family and friends from skating and from high school came over to say goodbye and wish me “un bon voyage.” Thank you to everyone who came over that night and to all those involved in the planning. It was the perfect ending to a perfect summer. <3



Wednesday I was up bright and early to pack and my mom and I left for the airport just after lunch. We parked, checked our bags, safely made it through security and got ready to fly. We flew directly to Tours after we landed in Paris where we will stayed until Frida. We spent the weekend in Paris and now I am back in Tours, beginning my orientation week. Maintenent, c’est le temps pour commencer à utiliser mon français, alors au revior et bon soirée! J’écrirai encore cette semaine!  

Avec amour, 

Erica xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

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