A Day in the Life

In excrutiating detail, with a few specific anecdotes

Dear family and friends,

Whew, now this is a lot of pressure! I’m very grateful for all the positive feedback on my first post, but it sure makes it harder to be writing for an audience with expectations. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this report as much as the first. 

I’m now almost three weeks into my five weeks of classes here in Strasbourg and have fallen into a very nice routine, so I figured a day in the life (in excruciating detail, and with a few specific anecdotes) would be a nice way to structure this post. So without further ado:

My first obligation of the day is always class at 10 a.m.. This feels like a late start, although my first class at Carleton is generally at 9:50, so objectively is not too much of a lifestyle change. It sure feels like one, though, in a very nice way—perhaps because my first obligation is truly at 10; not trying to cram an hour of 2A reading in over breakfast. On the most normal of my mornings, I’ll get up, make coffee in my room, take my time drinking it on my balcony, and have some yogurt. I was very happy to find that Siggi’s is a brand here (I even found some Siggi’s cups with muesli mixed in—I’ve never seen that in the US!), and I’ve also enjoyed trying the locally-made bergamot and geranium-flavored yogurts from an organic grocer down the street (what a delightful sentence to type). Then I’ll leave my room at 9:51, make my way down five flights of stairs, walk all of a block, and arrive at the program center by 9:54. In an ideal world I would even be reading the French news while sipping my coffee (both for my own edification and because it is part of our homework), but so far that has only happened once. 

On other mornings, I’ll leave my room around nine and go read at a coffee shop for 45 minutes before class. I’m thinking my next post might be a deep dive into the particularities of my favorite Strasbourg coffee shops, so stay tuned for that. And on still other mornings I’ll sleep in, make my pourover into a travel mug, and dash down the street to a bakery to grab something breakfast-y before class. The whole operation, from being in my room to in my seat with baked good in hand, takes about nine minutes (eight, even, if I opt for the bakery that I like slightly less, but ten if I waste my time trying to decide which bakery to go to), plus I get to start my day with a dose of feeling distinctly French (I have all but mastered the fifteen seconds of dialogue that make up a bakery interaction), so it’s a nice option to have, even if I preferer my mornings to be a little bit longer. 

And then comes class from ten to noon. We’re taking three different classes right now: one on French history from 1815 to present day, one on different elements of French society, and one on French international relations since 1945. The classes are entirely lecture-style with zero interactive component besides us asking the occasional clarification question. There are no powerpoints or handouts either—just the professor talking and us taking notes. [Note from later Sarah: we just had our first international relations class, and that professor did indeed use a powerpoint. What a breath of fresh air!). [Note from Sarah the next day: now our professor has Covid and is teaching the class over Zoom. An overcorrection if I’ve ever seen one 🙄]. We have the occasional reflective assignment, but no significant homework either, and certainly no assigned readings to do.

 As nice as it is to have all the free time, I’m missing reading, writing, and thinking in the way that Carleton makes me read, write, and think—hopefully my linguistics internship will help bring me back into that world a little bit. And I’ve been pleased to find that, even without being asked to really engage with the material outside of class, I’m absorbing lots of brand new, interesting information and thinking critically about it on my own time, even when I’m not meaning to. Plus it’s all a big cultural experience—it’s not like the classes are being poorly taught; they’re just being taught à la française. So I think it will all work itself out. We have multiple-choice midterm exams this Friday, and then we’ll write in-class essays for our final exams in two weeks, and I’m very curious to see how those go—and especially if they change my perspective on how big of a workload these classes entail. 

For now, history class is my clear favorite. Following all the different political regimes, new constitutions, wars, revolts, revolutions, and different Napoleons feels kind of like reading a great novel where each class period is the next chapter. And I don’t know the ending! I don’t think the professor makes it engaging on purpose, but it’s hard not to be drawn in when the story has so many comical twists and turns (email me if you’re interested and I’ll tell you about my favorites). Plus, she’s very good at pointing out (and poking fun of) the little moments in history where the French acted distinctly French, and that makes it all the more fun to listen to.

 In the society class we’ve talked mostly about the French welfare state, plus some on the education system, and a TON on la laïcité (the French separation of religion and state). Really, it’s impossible to get through fifteen minutes in either class without the professor taking some detour into la laïcité. Now I understand why it was the only thing we talked about in high school French. And it is a little unclear to me what we’re covering in International Relations since the class is extraordinarily difficult to follow over Zoom. But something along the lines of alliance-building and decolonization after World War II from an incredibly pro-France perspective. Somehow we learned about Algerian independence today and were left with the impression that France was the good guy of the story. Can you tell I’m not really enjoying this class? 

And then, of course, there’s the mid-class break. In my longer high school and college classes I’ve always had a break, too, but nowhere has it been as institutionalized as these ones. In the US, I’ve always felt like professors are giving us a break for our sake. Here, it feels like the professors are taking the break for themselves! Right at eleven, the lecture stops, and a ten-minute break is granted, no matter where we are in the lecture. And then, when it starts back up again (sometimes 11:10, more often 11:15), what I’ve found most surprising is that there’s no preamble, nor is there at the beginning of class. No “How are you,” no “Here’s what we’re doing for the next hour,” and especially no “Now, where was I last time?”. We come back, and the professor picks up the next sentence of the lecture, just like that. I’ve never found my Carleton professors disorganized, but I’ve been finding that degree of absolute certainty strikingly impressive—and at times a little alarming. 

Our lunch starts at noon, and if you thought the break was an institution, just wait until you hear about this. On our first day of class, the professor accidentally went until 12:05, and she may well have killed our first-born children by the way she apologized. Oftentimes for lunch, I’ll go to the bakery down the street to buy a baguette (1,20 €, which I always pay in exact change and leave feeling very pleased with myself), then go back to my room to make a sandwich. Last week it was tomatoes, radishes, and goat cheese, and this week it has been sliced chicken, cheese, and cornichons. Sometimes the baguette is even still warm, which is impossible to beat, although I have yet to figure out how to predict whether or not I’ll be so lucky. 

Other days, I’ll just buy myself lunch from the bakery, since that still comes in at less than a Little Joy Latte. My favorite bakery has an excellent chicken curry sandwich, and the other, even closer one has an excellent smoked salmon triangle on some kind of croissant-y bread. Yesterday I was in that bakery ordering gazpacho and a bretzel (yes, with a b. They are very popular here) for lunch, and another customer turned to me and asked (in French) where my accent was from. When I said “American,” she responded, “Ah yes, I was wondering.” In the moment I had no idea what to make of that interaction, but I’ve been instructed to take it as a compliment. And one of the men who works there even seems to have started to recognize me (it’s on a more touristy street than my favorite, and I suppose that makes my regular presence more notable?). So who knows; maybe that bakery will win me over before too long. Which is a shame, because the other one really does have better baguettes.

On still other days, I’ll bring leftovers to the program center and heat them up there instead of coming back to my room for lunch. It’s a nice option, especially on hot days when my fifth-floor room feels like a sauna, and the only way to keep it from actually literally reaching 100 degrees is by keeping the blackout shades totally shut, so it’s a pretty miserable little sauna box to be in. But the problem is that I’ve been batch cooking once or twice a week, then eating the same dinner for four or five days in a row. And having the same fennel sausage pasta, or shakshuka, or approximative-version-of-corned-beef-hash for a week’s worth of lunches and dinners is a little bit much. So a sandwich is usually my choice. 

When we come back at 1, our afternoons go one of three ways. Sometimes we have a second two-hour-long class. Those are not fun days, except that I feel very justified in going out and buying myself coffee or a treat afterward, so there is a silver lining. Other times we have some kind of excursion with the group: a visit to a museum, or to the historic downtown, or something educational-adjacent like that. And then two or three times a week we have travaux pratiques, which is a discussion-based class led by the program director. When I say discussion-based, I mean we sit for two hours (punctuated, of course, by a mid-class break) and discuss whatever is on our minds—in theory, topics related to interculturality and the news and what we’re learning in class, but in practice just about anything. 

No matter what it is that day, it ends promptly at 3, and the rest of the day is mine for the seizing. My afternoons are starting to evolve a little bit, but for the first two weeks, I would usually head out on a walk, followed by some errands. There was always something I needed to buy for those first two weeks, and I very rarely found it on my first try, but I let myself wander, since visiting every shop in the city of Strasbourg was a nice way to get acquainted with the whole city (I can now navigate pretty much anywhere without a map!). Among the hardest items to track down were: a sheet pan, command hooks, a reasonably-priced meat thermometer, and the right chair for my balcony. Among the items I still have not found: kale and decaf black tea. 

Towards the end of last week, my walks shifted from errands to trying to find the right place to get my hair cut (I left the US with it already intolerably long, so the issue was pressing). The issue here was not a lack of barber shops, but more that there seems to be at least one on every single corner of every single street of Strasbourg. Sometimes two. That may be hyperbole, but the fact that there are over fifteen in a one-kilometer radius of me is not. I spent two tortured afternoons walking around, stopping in front of every barbershop I came to, and deciding for some reason or another (charges twice the cost for a women’s haircut than men’s; too many people in there; not enough people in there; giant disco balls hanging from the ceiling…) that this was not the right place. Finally, with some help from the Internet, I found a place with explicitly gender-neutral pricing (plus no giant disco balls, although it was half tattoo parlor) and visited in person to make an appointment for the following Saturday. I remained incredibly anxious about the haircut itself (why? I am not so sure. Perhaps a combination of the impending small talk, needing to communicate with obscure vocabulary and high stakes, and not knowing with absolute certainty that French haircuts follow the procedure that American ones do), but I made it through with excellent results. And when I told the haircutter it was my first time getting a haircut in France, he told me my French was “incredible” and “better than my own!”. So a net positive experience, even if I wanted to throw up before, during, and for a few hours after. 

These days, my need for material goods has thankfully decreased, and I’ll usually spend the afternoon at a cafe instead, or sometimes just in my room, writing, or reading (I finished my five-month-long re-read of Harry Potter and am now continuing a tour through my childhood favorites, then the Golden Compass is next on my list), or travel planning. It’s looking like I’ll have two full weeks off between now and mid-November, and I’m having a lot of fun scheming about what I might be able to get up to during those breaks. Whatever it ends up being, it will certainly involve trains, and hopefully some concerts, visits with friends, and La Bretagne. For now, though, I’m very much just enjoying the feeling of opening as many tabs as I want about X night train to Nice and Y concert date in Dublin and Z beautiful bike path between Strasbourg and Switzerland and knowing that any and all of it is a true possibility. 

And speaking of bike paths—I bought myself a used bike! The acquisition of said bike will have to be its own story—it was a whole big cultural experience—but I’m looking forward to afternoon rides once the weather cools back down and maybe even some overnight weekend trips. 

Here I was going to write a whole long section about my nightly trip to the grocery store, which would have been entitled “The Terror of the produce scales.” But I’ve already spent five days writing this newsletter, and it’s already veering dangerously close to novella length, so I think we’ll all be better off if I give that narrative its own post. It’s already half-written in my head, so look for it this weekend (and scratch the idea of Strasbourg’s coffee shops being next on the docket). 

To return to the day in the life: once grocery shopping is done, the highlight of my day is usually the sunset. I have an excellent westward view off of my balcony, and the sunsets have truly been spectacular. Oftentimes I’ll be on my way downstairs to make dinner but will be stalled for a good fifteen or twenty minutes on my balcony watching the sky do its beautiful thing. Which brings me to… photos! There were so many that I wanted to share this time around that I’m including a link to a Google Album instead of integrating them into the post. They all have little captions, and you should even be able to comment directly on them if you feel so inclined. The link to the album is here.

Well, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: whew! That was a marathon. Hope you’ve enjoyed, and looking forward to sharing even more thoughts shortly. Would love to hear from all of you, and if there’s anything you’re particularly interested in hearing about in these posts, please let me know!

Sarah

Another link to the photo album