Crell's Adventures in France, 1999

This is Crell McLachlan. I spent the last half of 1999 studying in France!

August	September	October	November	December
France 1999	France 2000	Scotland	Germany	IAF in Amsterdam

17 Aout 1999
In less than a week I leave for France. I will try to have a diary of my adventures in Europe on this page. That way, I won't have to write a million letters to all my friends. I am mostly excited and a little bit scared.

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25 Aout 1999
Well, I have arrived in France, and I have found a place to live. My first day was an adventure. The plan landed in Paris, and I was able to get to the train station (Gare) and on the train to Strasbourg okay. But when I arrived in Strasbourg, it took me a while to find the place I wanted to stay at, and by the time I got there, there was nobody in the office. And I could not find my second choice place. So finally, about 2030 (8:30 pm), I found a Comfort Inn, and asked the lady about a room. She knew it was more than a student could afford, so she helped me find a better place. The next morning, I was able to find the place that was my second choice, and stayed there for two nights while I found a place for permanent. And once I got moved in, I helped some people from Sri Lanka who had just arrived and didn't know any French.

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31 August 1999
J'ai ete en France pour un semaine, mais tout n'est pas bien. Somebody got into my apartment and stole my remaining traveler's checks, and my camera and binoculars. Das ist nicht gut. but I called American Express and they are going to send me new traveller's checks, and I filed a police report, but I'm probably not going to get my camera and binoculars back. That really bugs me- I liked those binoculars.

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4 September 1999
On Friday we went on a boat tour of Strasbourg and then on a treasure hunt. We were told that the winning team of the treasure hunt would actually receive a prize, and that the winner would be the first team back with the most right answers. My team was the smallest, with four really tall guys and three girls, one of which was really short. We walked as fast as we could, and by the end were really hopping that there would actually be food at the reception afterwards. But we were the last ones in, and thought there would be no chance that we would win the prize. So we got something to drink and went to the city hall to meet the mayor. Well, it turned out that it was the deputy mayor that we meet, and that we won! Everybody else hurried to fast and got answers wrong! We got a book of Strasbourg and t-shirts.

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9 Septembre 1999
Wednesday afternoon was the French test. I have never heard anybody speak so fast!!!! It doesn't really matter how I did because it was just a pretest, to see what level of class we will be put in. There were some people, who already have two languages, who came, wrote their names on the tests, and left. They want to learn French just because we are in France. btw: I did well enough to be put in the more advanced class

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11 Septembre 1999
Special Congratualtions are due my friends Marla Brindley and Ross Trowbridge from Logan, UT. They just got married.
Congrats Marla & Ross!

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18 September 1999
This has been a very busy week. French classes started on Monday. It's not much of a class, we just talk the whole time. In French, of course, and if there's something we don't understand, or don't quite get, the teacher writes it on the board so we can see it. On Tuesday, we spent the entire morning on teamwork- with asides in anthropology and culture. The rest of the week was given over to Space Business, etc. and Space Physics. A very interesting week. Friday we had our first intercultural night- a potluck dinner with dishes from around the world. I made tamales cause nobody knew what they were, and they were a big hit- gone in ten minutes!

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23 September 1999
Last night I stayed up till 5:30 in the morning! It was not intentional, but I went to check e-mail, and also checked on the CONduit link to see if they had anything yet. Well, they did, a ton of stuff. And of course I had to go check them all out. So by the time I was getting ready to leave, a friend of mine sent me an e-mail, and when I answered, she responded within minutes, and we talked for several hours. This adventure does not seem to have been detrimental to my health so far, I have even been able to stay awake better than normal. And I know I'm going to be manic by the party tonight.

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26 September 1999
This Saturday I went to the Swiss Temple. The time there was very good, but the drive was a pain. It rained the whole way there, & was still raining when we left. About halfway back to the Swiss-German border, there was an accident up ahead of us. We were fine, but we had to wait for hours while the helicopter came for the hurt people, & tow trucks came for the cars. It is interesting that in Europe, instead of everyone trying to move to the right for emergency vehicles, the far left lane moves all the way left & only the other lanes move right. The worst of it was that the road was closed & everybody else detoured about 10 cars behind us!

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2 October 1999
Forstall the questions- yes I know the Schneiders. Our ward choir director's brother is the Brother Schneider who Brother Monson gave the medals to. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the October 1999 Saturday Morning Conference Report, Brother Monson's talk. I love General Conference. It is so wonderful to get to hear the prophet's voice. It was interesting that a lot of the native French speakers in the two Strasbourg wards that feel comfortable with English came to the English room. (The chapel had French, & another room had German.) So appearantly a whole bunch of other people love to hear the prophet's voice, too. There was a little bit of silliness in our room. After the rest song, we were trying to get the people near the switches to turn the lights off, & the speaker was talking about how the light would never go out.

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10 October 1999
On Saturday the class went on a field trip to a nearby mountain. We got to see an old convent, the old Pagan Wall, & a Medival castle. It was fun to climb around on the castle walls. The stairs had been taken out of the towers, but i got one of the guys to lift me up into a second-level window. On the ride out there & on the way back, we saw Halloween decorations, & those of us from America have had to explain what Halloween is to the rest.

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21 October 1999
Monday was our first exam. It was surprisingly heavy on business and management questions. Fortunately, that is what I studied, and i feel pretty good about it. Afterwards, I went to see Star Wars, in French because I didn't know there was an English theater here. But the dubbing did not seem like dubbing. They remastered the images so that the motions of the mouths matched the sounds that you hear. Kudos to Lucas.

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8 November 1999
My birthday was this weekend- a quarter century! And it really seemed like it was the whole weekend, because I stayed up late Friday to see the day in, but since I was born in the evening in Utah, the actual time didn't come until Sunday morning. So it has all blurred together to seem like one long day. I got presents from my parents, mostly socks, & the new SW book (look for the review next week). Mostly I relaxed, & thought about the last 1/4 century, and tried to look forward. It has gone by all too quickly. I'm still not ready to grow up, (sorry Ryan!) but neither can I imagine where I'll be when I'm 50. There's just too many options and too many unknowns.

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11 November 1999
This Wednesday the advanced French class went to the Musee des Arts Moderne. It was -um- interesting. One of the displays in the temporary display area was a huge room with video of clowns just laying there. You could hear them breathing and the only motion was the blinking eyes. It was disturbing- and if any kids were to see it, I'm sure they would be scarred for life.

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24 November 1999
It has snowed here the last few days. Yeah! Someone told me it doesn't snow much in Streasbourg. I'm wondering what their definition of "much" is, or if this is unusual. I love the snow- it makes it so much easier to stand the cold.

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28 November 1999
This Saturday, I went to Germany with some of my classmates. We went to the castle of Hohenzollern outside of Hechingen, where one of my classmates used to work. It was interesting- the castle was never actually used, but built as a monument in the 1800's. So the fireplaces didn't work and it was really cold. There was also a Weinachtsmarkt (Marche de Noel/ Christmas Market) and I got a cloth pinecone, a traditional German Christmas tree decoration.

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6 December 1999
This Friday, a bunch of us in the MSS 5 class stayed in the computer room late to watch the Mars Polar Lander report. The first thing that was shown relating to it was a computer simulation of the lander. When it came on, we all ran from our computers to stand in front of the TV. Too bad we still haven't heard back from it (as of Monday morning).

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13 December 1999
This Friday was the presentation on the literature survey portion of the team project and the ISU Christmas Party. The presentation went well. I was not going to help, because I had done an earlier presentation and wanted to give others a chance, but I ended up participating anyways. At the party, some of my classmates did impersonations of some of the faculty, and afterwards the dean said thatevery year the students do the same thing & the same characteristics get spoofed, which means the faculty is not learning.

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20 December 1999
Well, now the second module is over. This time we had two days for finals, and one day to prepare for it. Not that it did much good. I didn't even know where to start studying, and then the stuff that I spent the most time on wasn't even on the test! I think I did ok, though. And now I'm getting ready to go to Scotland for the break. So it's going to be two weeks before there's anymore updates. In the meantime,
Merry Christmas
& Happy New Year's!

Scotland France 2000

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