End of my French Mission

I am writing this post from Hamburg again. Do you want to know how my French mission ended up? Watch the video ;) (French and English subtitles available)

France was an interesting experience. New friendships, some cultural shocks, a bunch of places checked on my "to visit" list. Hard beginnings that turned into another place where I feel at home. Many stories to tell and I will tell them when I meet you (yes you!). I am happy I went there and I left with precious memories. So many people I miss (you guys know who I am talking about :) ).

By the way, I did not say goodbye to la francophonie altogether, I keep reading books (also) in French, my best mate here in Hamburg is from Paris, so there is no way this "mission end" would be a total break up with the French language. Aaand, traditionally, here is a map of the countries in which I can, after the last year, make myself understood.

French-speaking world

Au revoir ! ;)

Toulouse

So what's the city like? The French call it "La Ville Rose". But to me, it seemed always more orange, than pink. The buildings are built of a reddish stone or bricks and even the new business buildings keep onto that style. With its bricks, it reminds of the industrial British cities like Manchester.

What to see there? Is it very touristic?

The most important monument is undoubtedly the town hall built in the 1750's—"Le Capitol". If you walk on the Stree of Alsace-Lorraine, you notice a clock with a clock face divided in 24 instead of the classic 12 segments. Garonne, on of the four big French rivers flows through the city and shapes its form and character. Unlike in many other European cities, where the riverfront is the most touristic area, the riverside in Toulouse is quite calm. It's not as shiny and reconstructed as in Bordeaux, for example. In Toulouse, this is the place of picnics, talking, eating and drinking on a grass in front of the river. Especially in the late spring, it is full of students. Toulouse is not a city for tourists, it is a city of student parties. And of course, as a student city, it is relatively empty during the summer.

The Capitol

A special clock. Still not as special as the one in Brno ;)

Garonne riverside with Pont Neuf in the background.
If you need to know something about France: The oldest bridge
in the city is always called "The New Bridge"

Canal du Midi, an artificial waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean sea, built in the 17th century, is another significant element of the city. It is used everyday by lots of runners and bikers. It's pretty, but walking there during a summer night is a bit scary, because of the big amount of rats that live on the slopes and eat out of the garbage cans. And for some reason, you can always find lots of hookers around there after dark, half of which are male transvestites.

The size of the city and its future

Even though Toulouse is the fourth biggest city in France, you don't have that feeling when you are in the center. The buildings of the historic core are rather small. On the other hand, the city with its suburbs spans over a big area. The city is the fastest growing city in France and in several decades, in can overtake Marseilles and Lyon and become the second biggest after Paris, if the rates of growth remain constant. It's a French and European center of aeronautics. If you want to piss off a Toulousain, you just tell him that if you took away Airbus and the universities, there would be about 10 inhabitants left in the city. But you cannot make them angry with that, because they would agree, laughing. Airbus creates a lot of jobs here. Toulouse is the only construction site of Airbus, where they produce the giant A380.

Canal du Midi

The Bridge "St. Pierre"

The surroundings

You can go to "Cité d'Espace"—an amusement park dedicated to space. Just after an hour and half of driving, you get to Carcassonne—an amazing castle-town that inspired the famous board game. Its towers are impressive. On the top of that, everything is close. You want to surf? There is Biarritz at the Atlantic coast. You want to swim in a warm sea without big waves? Narbonne and Perpignan on the Mediterranean await you. You want to ski? Pyrenees are two hours from there. You are into wine and beautiful villages? Go for a trip to Périgord for a weekend.

There are some places that are good to visit. Like Paris. And then cities, which don't lie on the top of your "to see" lists, but might be better places to live or study.

1. My first appartement. It looked like a house of the Addams Family (its inhabitants were equally creepy, but less nice), I left after a week

2. My second apprtement—a studio. Was cool, but expensive

3. The third and final appartement. Cool flatmates.

C. The Capitol
S. Escalier de St. Pierre—place where the beer is cheep and drinking people below the age of 19 abundant

P. Prarier des Filtres—cool for picnics. Lots of concerts in the summer
L. Huge, beautiful library
N. Jean Jaurès—main night life zone, bars, clubs... 

Image sources:
http://www.ensiacet.fr/fr/vie-etudiante/vie-a-toulouse.html
http://www.isae.fr/en/node/1641
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toulouse_Horloge_24_heures_pour_Wikimedia_Commons.jpg

The French Mission

There it is. After two months of preparations, my new mission begins. This time it will be the language of Voltaire and Luc Besson. I write you from a tiny, cute flat in Toulouse, where I will stay for the next four months. I left Madrid almost a month ago and in between I was looking for a stable accomodation. I had to leave from the first one I had found in Toulouse. The house looked like a copy of the Addams Family villa. The inhabitants were also that creepy. I would not mind anything of that, I love the Addams Family, but my food was getting lost. Now I got my own place. With a parking place. And a gym. Suck that.

My goal this time? I wanted to be in Slovakia in July already, and the exams of the Alliance Français don't fit me well. But if I go for an exam, it will be probably B2 at the end of May or C1 at the end of July.

I kind of thought about Paris as well, but then, Paris is relatively expensive, and I don't want to spend the entire mission working just to pay for the rent. And everybody, absolutely everybody who has an experience with the city, told me that people are horrible there. Even the people who grew up there. People usually defend their own city, don't they? So I chose to believe them.

 Toulouse - First impressions

I know I should not compare them, but after Madrid, Toulouse seems small. There is less rubish in the streets, with the exception of dogshit. There is definitely more dogshit in Toulouse than in Madrid. And on Friday nights, the inner centre smells from human pee for a change. It is interesting that in Madrid, the streets of which are so much fuller on the weekends, the guys did not pee in the streets that much.

It is quiet. I was walking on the Rue d'Alsace Lorraine, one of the busiest streets and at that time it was full of people. But everybody walked silently. In Madrid, there are always people chatting, kids playing football and shouting, or at least there is some pub nearby with a football match in the TV. There was always this buzz present. After that, France seems to be a kingdom of peace and quiet. It is not much different in Slovakia though, it's just a change after Spain.

The people, although they don't smile as much on the street, are incredibly helpful and polite, when you ask them something. And... (although it might be only Toulouse) They speak English. Almost everybody I met had a communicational level of English. The knowledge of Spanish is also common.

It's a city of students and also of the aerospace engineering (yuppi!), so I don't think I will be bored here. Stay tuned.

Happy Clio—survived the Pyrenees

Snow and palm trees

Le Capitol—The town hall

Garonne

Am I C2 in Spanish?—The End of my Spanish mission

I got the results of the C2 exam in Spanish. You want to know, don't ya. OK, here they are:

	Prueba 1	Prueba 2	Prueba 3
	Uso de la lengua, comprensión de lectura y auditiva	Destrezas integradas: comprensión auditiva, comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción escritas	Destrezas integradas: comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción orales
Puntuación máxima	33.33	33.33	33.34
Puntuación mínima exigida	20	20	20
Puntuación obtenida	26.92 puntos	11.57 puntos	12.22 puntos
Calificación	APTO	NO APTO	NO APTO
CALIFICACIÓN GLOBAL	NO APTO

Translated into human speech: Overall, I failed. I am C2 in listening and reading, but I did not pass in writing and speaking. I expected a bad result in the written part, because we were supposed to write three essays in two hours. I was taking my time, had to take a break to go to the bathroom and in the end, I did not reserve enough time to correct my mistakes. But I was really confident about the oral part. I was like María from the soap operas—speaking like a machine gun. I hesitated only a few times. One thing that could have pulled me down was that I was trying to impress them with some phrases that are used only in books and nobody would use them in the everyday speech, as the books were my main source of vocabulary ("También quería hacer hincapié en el hecho que..."). But most probably, I did not sound natural and the number of my mistakes was too high. But at least I know this certificate is really a tough one.

This mission was by far my longest. Seven months of learning and then three more before I will have moved in another country. I chose it so, because I wanted to learn one language, really well and I chose Spanish to be that language. And another reason is that I really enjoyed Madrid.

The exam says I am C2 in reading and listening and somewhere around B2/C1 in speaking and writing. Fair enough, not bad. I am comfortable in Spanish. There are moments when I come to talk to a shop assistant and can't say a word. Then I feel bad. But consequently, I realize it happens to me also in Slovak.

Things I learned

There are also some things I discovered about language learning during this mission. Things that I will do from now on differently:

Regular one-to-one language exchange with a stable person is better than going for language exchange meetings in bars

You avoid that small talk part in the beginning.

It is really important to get the pronunciation right in the first phase and only then read a lot

I began with the books and only then learned that 'b' and 'v' are pronounced the same in Spanish. It cost me a lot to relearn to pronounce it right.

Extra time does not mean progressing at the same pace

When you have little time, you are in pressure and you keep using every moment. If you have several months ahead, you ease the tempo.

But it was not just these things. I also learned that one o'clock is too soon to have a lunch, that it is easier to understand somebody from South America than an Andalusian (Well, except the Argentina. Nobody understands Argentinians.), that it is "okay" if they cut you the internet connection one week before the requested date, that the waves for surfing are so much better at the North of Spain and that if you are a guy, you should go to Medellín, Colombia (supposedly, the gender ration is close to 2:1—although I stay sceptical about this).

Hispanophone World

Here is the map of new the part of the world I can make myself understood, thanks to the last year:

And what makes it even better is that unlike Portuguese, Spanish is much more homogeneous across various countries.

Goodbye Madrid, you will be missed. Especially because of your perfect inhabitants. Thank you, my friends for making this stay such a wonderful experience and see you around ;)

Video: Me Speaking Spanish

So here it is, my first short and embarassing video in Spanish. Sorry for the bad quality, my webcam was really trying her best. There are subtitles in English and Spanish, My mistakes are marked in the Spanish subtitles with brackets "[]".

Iberian Roadtrip—Part 5: Madrid

End of the Journey: Madrid

Evelyn stayed in Granada, so we continued to Madrid with Jura.

The first thing about Madrid: It's dirty. There is always trash in the streets. Once, I was in a pub eating and dropped a piece on the table. The waiter came and when he was changing my paper tablecloth, he took that piece and threw it on the ground. In his own restaurant. Interesting...

The royal palace is certainly worth a visit, the art museums are the one of the best in the world, many of them for free. Prado competes with Louvre. But somehow, when it comes to architecture, it's not that fancy. I probably had big expectations from a city with five million inhabitants, especially after Granada. In Madrid it is hard to find a building that looks older than three hundred years.

Madrid, huh?

The "prettier Buckingham palace"

And it was more packed than New York. We came on Saturday and there was a river of countless heads. So, because Jura had to leave next morning, we just had one evening to discover the heart of Spain. We had a good, exhausting walk. The hostel was horrible, there was a some guy in our room from Ethiopia or Somalia who lived there for longer time. And just because of that, he behaved as if the room belonged to him and was being a dick. In the morning, I drove Jura to the airport and then my relationship with Madrid began, since I had the city only for myself.

Soo many people

Cibeles. Here is where the Real Madrid fans celebrate

Plaza de Callao. It has a cinema where there
are many movie premieres. It was half closed
because some Hollywood stars had come.

Atocha—a train station with its own jungle

The boulevards of Madrid

View from the Palacio de Cibeles

Don Quijote, Sancho Panda, Miguel de Cervantes
and an annoying tourist touching Sancho's ass

-------------------------------------

It's already six months since those events. Six months since I came to Spain and it all passed really quickly. I feel here like home. I am now confident in Spanish and strive to polish it to C2. The exam date is November, so until then, I will keep exploring this place. :)

Iberian Roadtrip—Part 4: Granada and Hiking in Sierra Nevada

Stop #4: Granada

We arrived to Granada the same day we left Gibraltar. First complication—we could not drive to our hostel, because the road looked blocked by a retractable pylon, as if it were private. So we drove around, failed to find another entrance, but instead found a spot for parking on the hill with a beautiful view of Granada. It turned out it was good we had decided not to stay and instead try talk to the intercom next to the pylon. They let us in. The thing is, there are still nomad gypsies living in that area and they keep their carriages in the old center. The Cordobans want them out, that is why the entrance is blocked during the night.

I was also told it was good we did not park on the hill, because I might have been robbed :)

So the first day, we did a trek in Sierra Nevada. The 4 days of travelling were taking their toll and we woke up quite late. Hence, we chose only a short route. Still, it was the first time I saw cherry trees blossom in March. And behind them, there were mountains covered with snow.

Mountain village, where we started the trek

Foothills of Sierra Nevada

Cherry flowers in March

To the victory!

In the evening we got to explore Granada itself. From our hostel, there was a beautiful view of the palace complex Alhambra. But there was not much time to visit it, so we plunged into the (really) narrow streets of the old town. Btw, I still fail to understand, how could the bus drivers manage in that part of the town. In some streets, they had like 10 cm on each side, between the car and the wall.

The old town felt Arabic. There were many places where you could sit down to smoke shisha. A bit lower, we came to a more Spanish-looking part and our mouths got to taste what the real tapas are like. With every bought beer, you receive something small to eat. Three beer rounds and you don't have to have dinner.

Alhambra at night

The old Arabic city

Fancy a smoke?

It was damn cold in the morning!

Tapasitas :P The best goodbye kiss from Granada. The most beautiful Spanish city I have seen.