Planes, trains and automobiles: A trip to the other side of the world

It's been a week since Alexander and I started our journey from the West to the East. We left L'Isle Jourdain last Saturday and drove to Poiters with his parents, where they dropped us off at the train station. We then took a train to Paris Montparnasse, from there we took a metro to Gare St. Lazare and then took the RER to Marly le Roi where Alexander's Aunt Veronique picked us up in her car to stay the night with her. We had a lovely night enjoying wine, which we knew would be hard to come by once we arrived in Indonesia, and cheese, which is abundant in France, but not so much in Indonesia.

On the flight to Colombo

Sunday morning, I enjoyed breakfast with a bowl of Earl Grey tea, drinking from a bowl is a French custom that I thoroughly approve of, and then we loaded up into the car again and Aunt Veronique drove us to Charles de Gaulle airport. We flew with Sri Lanka airlines, so after nearly ten hours we arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka from Paris on Monday morning. The Colombo airport supplied me with my first jolt of culture shock. When we arrived, there were no customs officers to ask us twenty questions, there were no immigration officers to stamp our passport, we literally just walked right into the airport and on to the gate to wait for our next flight. We had to wait for the gate to open, during which time I needed to use the toilet....and I wished I had used it on the airplane. The floor was covered in liquid that I hope was water, but assume was urine. There were no trash cans in the stalls (for the men reading, women need trash cans in stalls to take care of female issues). Next to the toilet there was a kind of hose used to wash your unmentionables, which I didn't utilize. To top it off, I heard another woman use the toilet and not wash her hands, but that unfortunately happens in every country.

View of Singapore gardens

Once our gate opened, we went through a security check, but we didn't have to take off our shoes. We then waited for a bus to take us to board our plane. The flight from Colombo to Singapore was actually much more comfortable than the first flight, but it was only three and a half hours. Arriving in Singapore's Changi International Airport was kind of like arriving to a tropical resort. It was hands down the most beautiful airport I've ever been to. We then took a taxi to get to our hotel. The taxi driver was incredibly friendly, and basically gave us a free tour of the "Garden City". We arrived at the hotel late Monday afternoon, and tried to explore a bit, even though we were completely exhausted. It was really amazing that we had traveled to the other side of the world, but we were surrounded by the English language and Western stores. It was an illustration of globalization at its finest.

All day Tuesday we continued to explore Singapore. Of course we had to have lunch at an English pub. However, the traditional fish and chips would have been to heavy, so we opted for the neo-traditional dish of Chicken Tikka Masala. Once we explored the majority of the city, we took the very modern Metro/Subway/Underground to pick up our luggage and then took a taxi back to the airport. Our flight to Jakarta was just over an hour. Once we arrived in Jakarta, I was worried about the bottle of wine I had in my bag. However, security and customs were once again not nearly as strict as Western standards. From the airport we were picked up and brought to our new apartment.

So after four days of planes, trains and automobiles, we finally arrived to our new home in Jakarta. It's hot, polluted and a tad small, but it's a place of our own. There's a vast array of cultural differences, but I will save those for later posts. For now, I'm happy to be settled...at least for the next year.

Parlez-Vous Anglais? A holiday in France

We left the U.K. a week ago today and arrived at the maison of my beau-parents, which is located in a tiny village called L'Isle Jourdain, between Poitiers and Limoges. Since my mari and beau-parents are basically fluent in French, I decided I should try to make an effort to really try to learn la langue français. 

I've attempted to learn French off and on since I was about 15 years old. The most seriously I took learning it was when I lived about 30 minutes from the French border town of Strasbourg, at which point I actually bought two textbooks for Elementary French 1 and 2. Generally though, I would simply ask my handful of French amis how to say a handful of basic sentences, just so I could say things like 'je ne comprends pas' (I don't understand), je parle français un petit peu (I speak a little bit of French), j'ai soif (I'm thirsty), or j'ai faim (I'm hungry).

When it comes to reading and writing French, I've been able to pick it up quite quickly due to my Spanish background. Not only is the grammar similar, there are also several cognates like facil and dificil. I've also been informed that nearly thirty percent of the English language comes from French, so cognates like intelligent and stupid come easily as well. However, the production skills of listening and speaking are a whole other can of vers.

When it comes to pronunciation, it seems there are so many exceptions to rules, that the only real rule is that there are exceptions. It's frustrating for me because I feel as if regardless of how well I can read or write in French, it will always be obvious that I'm not a native as soon as I open my mouth.

Of course, I guess I can't complain too much. Compared to English, French is a proverbial walk in the jardin as far as exceptions are concerned. I learned in my TEFL certification course how many exceptions there are in English and came to understand regardless of a rule, there will always be an exception.

In the end, I suppose I should get an 'A' for effort. At least I can actually kind of speak in some form of broken French, unlike my favorite interpreter.