Now, back to what I am sure is bamboozling you all. "Hope, what do you mean someone stole your student identity?" Well, pals, are we ready for story time? After nine weeks without my student card, I decided to give up. They knew I was here, attending classes and exams - check me out - I was growing sick of the sentence "Il n'est pas disponible" (It's not available). This theory was working out for me, I was living the high life, coffee from the machine, baguette from the law faculty cafeteria and I was looking fierce and French - no laughing. But then the bombshell came. An email from the head of the Erasmus programme at university telling me my student card had been stolen. "Oh" I thought. "Why would someone do that?" Emailing back the lecturer, she informed me that someone had been attending classes under my name in the law and science faculties. Part of me was confused and slightly scared that someone was pretending to be me, but of course, I was hugely flattered. Me! A muse! To a thief and rebel of learning, sticking it to the man, and I am the face and name of the operation! Though in the back of my mind there is something a bit Dog the Bounty Hunter about it, this is another reason why I love Strasbourg. Someone - one hopes a female, since my face is on that card - has gone underground in the name of education, and for nearly an entire semester, gotten away with it. I applaud you, you rabble-rousing science and law renegade for actually succeeding. But I'd rather like my student card back now, please. I want something to stick into my scrapbook.
Showing posts with label style. Show all posts
Showing posts with label style. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 November 2013
Christmas and Other Reasons I Love Strasbourg
Like the holiday season itself, the minus degrees landed in StrazzyB with a thud (I fell over, the shame) these past few weeks. I was rudely awoken at 9am Friday morning to witness the rising of The Star of Bethlehem in the square outside my window, and just like that two hours later when I eventually did wake up, Christmas was here! For all its oddities; milk in a tube, Sunday slumpday and angry cyclists, Strasbourg knows how to deliver Christmas. Though the "capital of Christmas'" markets may not be open until this coming week, the preparations have been going on for about a fortnight and the Christmas fanatic inside me is begging for a glass of vin chaud and roasted chestnuts. Which leads me on to reasons I really love StrazzyB. Though it was cruel and mean at the start of my stay, holding me back from finding accommodation, confusing me with its university mumbo jumbo and this week, having someone steal my student identity (more later), it's pretty top notch. I am not going to be groundbreaking by saying how beautiful it is, or how quaint and unique, you all already knew that. Nope, I love Strasbourg because nowhere else in the world I can imagine, can you get a kebab at any hour of the day or night and be asked if you want a side of curry wurst. Except maybe Germany, but I am not in Germany, so I do not know. Nowhere else will you find a café that opens at 7am, and closes at 11pm...on a Sunday. And I will happily bet good money that nowhere else will you find such good pretzels. Alright, so food is on my mind a lot. But I thought it might make Strazzy sound a bit odd if I told you about the punk who wanders around permanently drunk with a boombox under his arm, and the man with no nose who plays saxophone. They're génial too. My madcap capers and experiences are seriously great. A special shout out to the man from the kebab shop, who wishes me a "BONJOUR HELLO MY BRITISH FRIEND!" every morning as I pass by.
Now, back to what I am sure is bamboozling you all. "Hope, what do you mean someone stole your student identity?" Well, pals, are we ready for story time? After nine weeks without my student card, I decided to give up. They knew I was here, attending classes and exams - check me out - I was growing sick of the sentence "Il n'est pas disponible" (It's not available). This theory was working out for me, I was living the high life, coffee from the machine, baguette from the law faculty cafeteria and I was looking fierce and French - no laughing. But then the bombshell came. An email from the head of the Erasmus programme at university telling me my student card had been stolen. "Oh" I thought. "Why would someone do that?" Emailing back the lecturer, she informed me that someone had been attending classes under my name in the law and science faculties. Part of me was confused and slightly scared that someone was pretending to be me, but of course, I was hugely flattered. Me! A muse! To a thief and rebel of learning, sticking it to the man, and I am the face and name of the operation! Though in the back of my mind there is something a bit Dog the Bounty Hunter about it, this is another reason why I love Strasbourg. Someone - one hopes a female, since my face is on that card - has gone underground in the name of education, and for nearly an entire semester, gotten away with it. I applaud you, you rabble-rousing science and law renegade for actually succeeding. But I'd rather like my student card back now, please. I want something to stick into my scrapbook.
Now, back to what I am sure is bamboozling you all. "Hope, what do you mean someone stole your student identity?" Well, pals, are we ready for story time? After nine weeks without my student card, I decided to give up. They knew I was here, attending classes and exams - check me out - I was growing sick of the sentence "Il n'est pas disponible" (It's not available). This theory was working out for me, I was living the high life, coffee from the machine, baguette from the law faculty cafeteria and I was looking fierce and French - no laughing. But then the bombshell came. An email from the head of the Erasmus programme at university telling me my student card had been stolen. "Oh" I thought. "Why would someone do that?" Emailing back the lecturer, she informed me that someone had been attending classes under my name in the law and science faculties. Part of me was confused and slightly scared that someone was pretending to be me, but of course, I was hugely flattered. Me! A muse! To a thief and rebel of learning, sticking it to the man, and I am the face and name of the operation! Though in the back of my mind there is something a bit Dog the Bounty Hunter about it, this is another reason why I love Strasbourg. Someone - one hopes a female, since my face is on that card - has gone underground in the name of education, and for nearly an entire semester, gotten away with it. I applaud you, you rabble-rousing science and law renegade for actually succeeding. But I'd rather like my student card back now, please. I want something to stick into my scrapbook.
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Does This Mean I'm a Grown Up?
I think I'm an adult.
This sentence as I type it throws me into such a state of panic and anguish that I scatter quickly back into bed, hide under the covers and watch Ugly Betty on Netflix. Almost like that scene on Freaky Friday when they realise what's happened. It's scary, when? How? Why?!
But I cannot escape the feeling, that I am genuinely grown up. I know, I was meant to be grown up already, paying my electricity bill, looking after my student loan and buying fruit. Which I am doing (really, mum!), but to me, it's always felt like it should be more than drinking coffee rather than tea and reading the Telegraph, not just doing the sudoku. Which is why the realisation that I AM AN ADULT hit me where I least expected it - living in France at the age of 20. But it didn't hurt.
Between you and I, friends of the Internet, today I bought some novelty hats in Germany. Not just any novelty hat no, this is not your bog standard party hat with a streamer, or your day to day reindeer antlers, I bought felt hats, in the shape of dogs, elephants and bees. Oh, and I bought five. Now, before we all have a chuckle, thinking "Oh, Hope, you fruit loop, why? Could you not have bought something useful like pens and a microwave?" to which I respond "Yes, you are correct, stranger who I have just made up to be saying such a thing, I could have done so. But my mum asked me to buy them." This, however isn't the embarrassing bit. Not in the slightest. Helplessly in the €1 Store whilst paying for my five felt novelty hats, and receiving that look of disdain and sigh of "tourists..." from the cashier, I realised I didn't know how to ask for a bag in German. Oh no. On the verge of tears, my heart beating, and being cast aside for the woman behind me paying for a toilet brush, I was forced to leave without a bag. Holding the novelty hats. I was practically forced out of the shop into the streets, clutching hats in the shape of animals. I kept an understandably low profile walking through the town, certain that the Germans were pointing and laughing at the blonde girl with a bumblebee hat in hand, so obviously needing a bag, before quickly ducking into the supermarket to buy something in order to get a bag. I will admit that my supermarket purchase was smooth peanut butter, since it's over €4 in France and only €2 in Deutschland, so my sassy ascent into fully fledged adult life hit a small but delicious snag. But as I skipped out of Kehl, my animal hats now safely hidden from public sight, I realised that I hadn't worn any of the hats in the street, and for this, I was a grown up. With peanut butter.
Maybe this is more of a silly post about felt hats, but after a long arduous process finding my feet in France, socially and with university (STILL looking at you, NTU admin...), learning how to pay the electricity company and just getting to grips with something that for a long time didn't feel real, it was glorious to have a little grown up victory. I even drank coffee the other day, one that wasn't 85% steamed milk too! Well played, France and Germany, you made me responsible. Now, how do you go about making Spatzle..?
Oh and if you're wondering: Kann ich bitte eine Tasche?
This sentence as I type it throws me into such a state of panic and anguish that I scatter quickly back into bed, hide under the covers and watch Ugly Betty on Netflix. Almost like that scene on Freaky Friday when they realise what's happened. It's scary, when? How? Why?!
But I cannot escape the feeling, that I am genuinely grown up. I know, I was meant to be grown up already, paying my electricity bill, looking after my student loan and buying fruit. Which I am doing (really, mum!), but to me, it's always felt like it should be more than drinking coffee rather than tea and reading the Telegraph, not just doing the sudoku. Which is why the realisation that I AM AN ADULT hit me where I least expected it - living in France at the age of 20. But it didn't hurt.
Between you and I, friends of the Internet, today I bought some novelty hats in Germany. Not just any novelty hat no, this is not your bog standard party hat with a streamer, or your day to day reindeer antlers, I bought felt hats, in the shape of dogs, elephants and bees. Oh, and I bought five. Now, before we all have a chuckle, thinking "Oh, Hope, you fruit loop, why? Could you not have bought something useful like pens and a microwave?" to which I respond "Yes, you are correct, stranger who I have just made up to be saying such a thing, I could have done so. But my mum asked me to buy them." This, however isn't the embarrassing bit. Not in the slightest. Helplessly in the €1 Store whilst paying for my five felt novelty hats, and receiving that look of disdain and sigh of "tourists..." from the cashier, I realised I didn't know how to ask for a bag in German. Oh no. On the verge of tears, my heart beating, and being cast aside for the woman behind me paying for a toilet brush, I was forced to leave without a bag. Holding the novelty hats. I was practically forced out of the shop into the streets, clutching hats in the shape of animals. I kept an understandably low profile walking through the town, certain that the Germans were pointing and laughing at the blonde girl with a bumblebee hat in hand, so obviously needing a bag, before quickly ducking into the supermarket to buy something in order to get a bag. I will admit that my supermarket purchase was smooth peanut butter, since it's over €4 in France and only €2 in Deutschland, so my sassy ascent into fully fledged adult life hit a small but delicious snag. But as I skipped out of Kehl, my animal hats now safely hidden from public sight, I realised that I hadn't worn any of the hats in the street, and for this, I was a grown up. With peanut butter.
Maybe this is more of a silly post about felt hats, but after a long arduous process finding my feet in France, socially and with university (STILL looking at you, NTU admin...), learning how to pay the electricity company and just getting to grips with something that for a long time didn't feel real, it was glorious to have a little grown up victory. I even drank coffee the other day, one that wasn't 85% steamed milk too! Well played, France and Germany, you made me responsible. Now, how do you go about making Spatzle..?
Oh and if you're wondering: Kann ich bitte eine Tasche?
Friday, 4 October 2013
A Good French Dressing
Bleary eyed and tired, I dragged myself to an 8am lecture Wednesday morning, cursing at the university for making me wake up whilst it was still dark. My hair, despite wrestling with a brush, sticking out at various angles and I'm fairly certain my low maintenance make up routine that day left me looking like Stig of the Dump. But at least it was early and I could be home to actually reassess my visible situation two hours later.
Two hours later, I walked outside and to my horror, total and utter terror, the French students had arrived. And it was like Paris Fashion Week.
Just standing by the entrance of the university building, I saw a girl. Michael Kors bag slung on her arm, hair poker straight, walking like she in fact owned France. To my left, I recoiled in self-loathing as I saw another girl hop off her rental bike, readjust her sunglasses and totter inside...IN HEELS. I will admit that I am making myself out to sound like I was wearing a bin bag and slept by the Rhone river, when actually I did make the effort to put a skirt on and even dug out my eyebrow pencil for the day, but I wasn't winning America's Next Top Model that day, let's just say. I have still not mastered the art of French chic.
French dressing (the act of clothing, not like a salad topping) is an elusive mystery. For the cool French chicks riding their bikes in five inch stilettos, it's second nature, something they were born with, or something their mum taught them whilst eating baguettes at light-speed, three glasses of vin rouge on the go. For us Estrasmuses, myself in particular, it is something I must learn and in the meantime trying to not trip over the laces on my Doc Martens. Until this day comes, I have compiled a list of ways in which I could appear to be less dorky-Brit-abroad and more native-Franco-German-delight.
1. Stop letting your nail varnish chip.
2. Wine counts as lunch.
3. Zara and Mango are your new best friends.
4. Nobody cool takes the tram.
5. I really need a Michael Kors bag.
So for someone typing this with three glittery nails on each hand, drinking chamomile tea wearing a Norwich City shirt, it's going well. Of course these things aren't going to transform me into a Francaise at the stroke of midnight, during a full moon, in full daylight, whatever. But whilst I'm here, I thought I might as well give "fitting in" a bash. I am still yet to master heels on solid ground before attempting to cycle in them, and I actually enjoy my daily tram ride, so maybe I am still sticking out like the un-chic bag lady that this post has unintentionally made me out to be (I'm really not, I just like Topshop!), however I can rest easy knowing I am not parading around in a bumbag, I HEART ALSACE hoodie and socks and sandals combination. There is always hope. Now where did I leave that beret..?
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