I mentioned a little bit ago that I had to go to the doctor so I wanted to write a post about how that went! I'm getting behind on all the things I want to blog about!
So, first of all, in France there are no such things as medchecks or anything like that from what I've seen, there is just the hospital and a bunch of private practice doctors, some specialized and some not. So when I needed to see a doctor I didn't know where to start. Thank goodness I have friends here.
I asked my friends if any of them had gone to a doctor here and I got the name of one that was only a couple metro stops away and came with a really good recommendation. So it's Friday morning and I call and ask to make an appointment. The only time Friday that they could get me in was too late for me because I'd be working so Monday it was.
(Ps- speaking French on the phone is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, I just kept saying 'pardon!?' while the secretary undoubtedly rolled her eyes. )
So I leave my apartment an hour and a half early to get to the doctor, just to be sure I'm not late and giving myself time to get lost, because inevitably that will happen. But no, I found it, and was a full hour early, luckily there were a few stores around so I managed to entertain myself.
Finally it's time for my appointment and I walk to the door and can't figure out how to open it. It's not like a store door, it's an apartment building that has been leased out to doctors, lawyers etc. and I'm panicking because I should be able to figure out how to open a door. I call my friend and ask, she tells me there should be a button at the top of a little silver box on the door that has everyone's name listed. I find it and shout "ah! I got it!!!" while 3 French lawyers scoot around me to hit the button, the door swings open and I look like an idiot. Meh.
So I walk up to the door of the doctors office, also locked but before panicking I found the little silver button to press and was buzzed in. I explained to the secretary that I had an appointment and she pointed to a little waiting room. I open the door and there are 5 or 6 people in the room and they are all staring at me, so I nervously sit down and get out a book that I've been trying to read in French.
As I sit there, people are getting called out of the waiting room and more people come in, what I realized as I sat there, is that when I walked in the door everyone WAS staring at me, because I was supposed to greet everyone! I had no idea, but every single person who walked through the door said "bonjour" and then was greeted equally by a "bonjour" from every other person in the room which I thought was bizarre. In the US people don't talk to each other. Haha
Anyway it's my turn and I go into the doctors office and the doc is a sweet little man who reminds me of French Richard Gere and he asks me all sorts of questions and I think I am answering them all correctly, he gets to my year of birth and I think I said 1989.
Quick side note about French numbers, 70- 99 are super complicated. Instead of having their own name, seventy is soixante-dix or sixty and ten, then sixty and eleven and so forth. Eighty is quatre-vingt or four-twenty and ninety is quatre-vingt-dix, four-twenty-ten. Bah.
Anyway he writes me a prescription that I just take to the nearest pharmacy and they will fill it no problem. He then asks for 30 euro as his fee. Which is my favorite part about the 'going to the French doctor' thing. That's not a co-pay. That's it. That's what doctors charge in France. Some charge a little more if they want to be a chic practice but generally never more than 50. And the better part is, he asked if I am on social security, which I'm not yet but will be in several months. He gave me a paper to fill out and once I am on social security, I send the paper in and my visit will be reimbursed about 60% The French government wants you to go to the doctor and be healthy even if you can barely afford it.
So I take my prescription to the nearest pharmacy; hint, there is one on every block with a bright green flashing cross. And for 10 euro I get my medicine and also another form to be reimbursed for social security. Even medicine!
Finally, there are insurance plans you can buy, which I'm in the works of doing, that will get you 100% reimbursed for any medical expenses you encounter.
I think that's absolutely amazing, when you consider my accident prone self and my apparent need to rack up a bajillion dollars in medical expenses at home. (medcheck is a 70 dollar co-pay y'all)
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
I don't care. Language barrier 101.
Just a quick little lesson for those of you interested in learning a foreign language.
All in all, my kids are pretty well behaved. They gripe and moan a lot when they don't want to do something but so far I have contributed that to them still needing to adjust to me.
One particular incident involved not wanting to clean up snack and a lot of muttering under the breath in French because it was known that it's a little hard for me to understand sometimes. Naturally I went up to my room and began looking up phrases I thought may have been said to me and I settled on "because I don't want to!" which is way better than what I thought.
Fast forward to hanging out with Augusta and a bunch of her French friends. They go back and forth between French and English so we can sometimes be included but it's mostly me asking what someone said or what something means because a lot of it is slang. One such phrase I heard the guys say and I asked one of them what it meant, he told me in English that it meant "I don't care." okay cool. We moved on.
Later that week, B and H asked me to play ping pong with them and I said yes. They asked what side I wanted to start on and I thought it would be awesome to show them that I know some cool French slang like a normal French person so to express my indifference, I threw out this new phrase I had learned.
The kids eyes went wide and they looked at each other with their mouths open and then looked at me like I had suddenly grown another head. The 10 year old immediately corrected me. "um you don't want to say that, say "je m'en fiche" instead. What you just said is naughty"
Apparently what I had said meant "I don't give a d***" my bad guys. It technically means the same thing as "I don't care" with a subtle difference.
Lesson learned: look up every phrase taught to you by a 20 something French guy BEFORE saying in front of your kids.
All in all, my kids are pretty well behaved. They gripe and moan a lot when they don't want to do something but so far I have contributed that to them still needing to adjust to me.
One particular incident involved not wanting to clean up snack and a lot of muttering under the breath in French because it was known that it's a little hard for me to understand sometimes. Naturally I went up to my room and began looking up phrases I thought may have been said to me and I settled on "because I don't want to!" which is way better than what I thought.
Fast forward to hanging out with Augusta and a bunch of her French friends. They go back and forth between French and English so we can sometimes be included but it's mostly me asking what someone said or what something means because a lot of it is slang. One such phrase I heard the guys say and I asked one of them what it meant, he told me in English that it meant "I don't care." okay cool. We moved on.
Later that week, B and H asked me to play ping pong with them and I said yes. They asked what side I wanted to start on and I thought it would be awesome to show them that I know some cool French slang like a normal French person so to express my indifference, I threw out this new phrase I had learned.
The kids eyes went wide and they looked at each other with their mouths open and then looked at me like I had suddenly grown another head. The 10 year old immediately corrected me. "um you don't want to say that, say "je m'en fiche" instead. What you just said is naughty"
Apparently what I had said meant "I don't give a d***" my bad guys. It technically means the same thing as "I don't care" with a subtle difference.
Lesson learned: look up every phrase taught to you by a 20 something French guy BEFORE saying in front of your kids.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Le showcase and a barbecue
This last week went by really fast and I spent a lot of time filling out paperwork, running errands, opening a bank account, stuff like that. Things that are annoying to do at home, and difficult to do here because of the language.
The poor guy who works at the bank trying to open a bank account for me. So patient. I experienced the French post office, a French bank, a city grocery store and a French department store, tomorrow I'm going to the doctor (I'm fine don't worry) but that will be another interesting and complicated encounter.
The kids also did some really cute and funny things, but that will be for my next blog post. What I really want to discuss was this weekend. My first French club.
It's called le showcase, and it is literally under the bridge on the siene. Jason Bourne ran over this club. We walk in and it is so loud you can't hear yourself or anyone else, disco lights are flashing so you can't see anything and the drinks are so expensive that they are undoubtedly not worth it. So we kinda all decide to just sit and people watch. Pretty soon a French guy starts chatting with us and it becomes the most disjointed conversation I've ever experienced. He wants to practice his English so he is speaking English and I am speaking awful French and half the time we don't understand each other and the other half we're correcting each others grammar.
He then asks us if we want to go smoke a cigarette and I say no thanks but it's really hot so we'll (all the girls and i) go outside. We go outside and there are seriously twice as many people outside smoking as inside this giant club. He asks why I don't want to smoke in serious confusion because EVERYONE here that is under 25 smokes. When I say everyone, I mean that when I walk the children to school in the morning we walk past the high school and I swear there are 13 year olds smoking. So explaining that I don't smoke is difficult and apparently culturally bizarre so I just tell him that I don't know why but I don't smoke. He seems more confused by this answer.
Finally we've all had enough and decide to head to WOS an English speaking bar worked by friends of the girls that I'm with. At this point it's 1ish in the morning and we have a difficult decision to make. The metros shut down for cleaning from 1:45ish to 5:30am so if you want to go home any time between then you have to take a cab which is so expensive. We decide to tough it out and plan to stay at WOS until 5:30 am so we can take the metro home. We get there and run into some of their other friends. Then it's just a normal night out except the duration is reminding me of IUDM. I'm so tired, all I wanted was to go to bed. When it was fiiiiinally time to go, we hopped on the metro and I got to my apartment at 6am, completely wiped out.
The next day I hung out with Augusta and Hugo and they invited me to a barbecue thrown by Hugo's friend Sysy. Augusta and I are extremely curious what there is going to be at a French barbecue. We get there and there is a grill full of hotdogs and chips and soda and beer just like America. We were so shocked, they even had ketchup mustard and mayonnaise. We went inside where the boys we knew were watching soccer, and I already miss American sports so badly so I decide to give soccer a shot. Aside from cute guys playing it, I wasn't super into it. Apparently 2 girls who want to watch soccer Is strange because every other girl walked in and asked why we were watching.
Hugo brings us hotdogs and I burst out laughing. In total French fashion, the hotdogs had a ripped open baguette as the bun and he had just put mayonnaise on them. It was so bizarre but we found ketchup an it ended up being fine but we just thought it was hilarious.
Let's take something super American and give it a French twist. Totally French.
The poor guy who works at the bank trying to open a bank account for me. So patient. I experienced the French post office, a French bank, a city grocery store and a French department store, tomorrow I'm going to the doctor (I'm fine don't worry) but that will be another interesting and complicated encounter.
The kids also did some really cute and funny things, but that will be for my next blog post. What I really want to discuss was this weekend. My first French club.
It's called le showcase, and it is literally under the bridge on the siene. Jason Bourne ran over this club. We walk in and it is so loud you can't hear yourself or anyone else, disco lights are flashing so you can't see anything and the drinks are so expensive that they are undoubtedly not worth it. So we kinda all decide to just sit and people watch. Pretty soon a French guy starts chatting with us and it becomes the most disjointed conversation I've ever experienced. He wants to practice his English so he is speaking English and I am speaking awful French and half the time we don't understand each other and the other half we're correcting each others grammar.
He then asks us if we want to go smoke a cigarette and I say no thanks but it's really hot so we'll (all the girls and i) go outside. We go outside and there are seriously twice as many people outside smoking as inside this giant club. He asks why I don't want to smoke in serious confusion because EVERYONE here that is under 25 smokes. When I say everyone, I mean that when I walk the children to school in the morning we walk past the high school and I swear there are 13 year olds smoking. So explaining that I don't smoke is difficult and apparently culturally bizarre so I just tell him that I don't know why but I don't smoke. He seems more confused by this answer.
Finally we've all had enough and decide to head to WOS an English speaking bar worked by friends of the girls that I'm with. At this point it's 1ish in the morning and we have a difficult decision to make. The metros shut down for cleaning from 1:45ish to 5:30am so if you want to go home any time between then you have to take a cab which is so expensive. We decide to tough it out and plan to stay at WOS until 5:30 am so we can take the metro home. We get there and run into some of their other friends. Then it's just a normal night out except the duration is reminding me of IUDM. I'm so tired, all I wanted was to go to bed. When it was fiiiiinally time to go, we hopped on the metro and I got to my apartment at 6am, completely wiped out.
The next day I hung out with Augusta and Hugo and they invited me to a barbecue thrown by Hugo's friend Sysy. Augusta and I are extremely curious what there is going to be at a French barbecue. We get there and there is a grill full of hotdogs and chips and soda and beer just like America. We were so shocked, they even had ketchup mustard and mayonnaise. We went inside where the boys we knew were watching soccer, and I already miss American sports so badly so I decide to give soccer a shot. Aside from cute guys playing it, I wasn't super into it. Apparently 2 girls who want to watch soccer Is strange because every other girl walked in and asked why we were watching.
Hugo brings us hotdogs and I burst out laughing. In total French fashion, the hotdogs had a ripped open baguette as the bun and he had just put mayonnaise on them. It was so bizarre but we found ketchup an it ended up being fine but we just thought it was hilarious.
Let's take something super American and give it a French twist. Totally French.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Just breathe deeply
People here are extremely relaxed. It's all about enjoying your life, food and time while you're here. They may work from 9-6 most days but many people get a 2 hour lunch break and so many holidays. Everything closes at 8pm besides restaurants and bars, many things aren't open on Sunday at all. It's really fabulous. So here is how I spent my weekend:
Friday night I went to a beach party at an English speaking bar
Saturday during the day I walked around with Augusta and Hugo- we got sushi, went to a park and just relaxed for several hours (see photos) then we went to the jardin du luxembourg and hung out a little bit, got dinner in a small little area tucked back behind the pantheon, found the road where Justin Bieber was only several hours before and then went out a little bit.
Yesterday i just hung around with Augusta and laid in bed and slept and desperately tried to watch bachelorette but I don't have Internet set up yet.
It was one of the best weekends ever, it was so nice to not have something to do or a deadline or anything, just to be able to relax.
So, Today is my first day of school, I'm joining way late, taking the last 3 weeks of my class then taking the they 2 months in October. I'm nervous but I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm still going about 45 minutes early though just to make sure I find the right place. Eek.
Here is what I have learned so far in France:
French people love their language and are excited that you are learning it. They are possibly more excited to correct you when your grammar is incorrect.
When you don't understand something, just say 'oui oui' a lot especially if food is involved.
The bumpers on a car are for exactly that- why WOULDN'T you use them?
When the French find out you've learned their language they assume you're Canadian, English, or German. An American wouldn't take the time!
It's impossible to explain the word "swag"
When all else fails and you feel nervous or overwhelmed, just breathe deeply and think about how cool it is that you're here.
Friday night I went to a beach party at an English speaking bar
Saturday during the day I walked around with Augusta and Hugo- we got sushi, went to a park and just relaxed for several hours (see photos) then we went to the jardin du luxembourg and hung out a little bit, got dinner in a small little area tucked back behind the pantheon, found the road where Justin Bieber was only several hours before and then went out a little bit.
Yesterday i just hung around with Augusta and laid in bed and slept and desperately tried to watch bachelorette but I don't have Internet set up yet.
It was one of the best weekends ever, it was so nice to not have something to do or a deadline or anything, just to be able to relax.
So, Today is my first day of school, I'm joining way late, taking the last 3 weeks of my class then taking the they 2 months in October. I'm nervous but I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm still going about 45 minutes early though just to make sure I find the right place. Eek.
Here is what I have learned so far in France:
French people love their language and are excited that you are learning it. They are possibly more excited to correct you when your grammar is incorrect.
When you don't understand something, just say 'oui oui' a lot especially if food is involved.
The bumpers on a car are for exactly that- why WOULDN'T you use them?
When the French find out you've learned their language they assume you're Canadian, English, or German. An American wouldn't take the time!
It's impossible to explain the word "swag"
When all else fails and you feel nervous or overwhelmed, just breathe deeply and think about how cool it is that you're here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)