There has been a lot going on in the past few days, so I'll just tell it all. First, included as part of my program here with Dickinson is 20 hours of community service for the semester. It can come in any form, as long as we are integrating ourselves in the Toulouse community and making connections with the people. It's called our "benevolat," and I've decided that mine is going to be helping to coach a debate team at one of the universities here in Toulouse. It is called SupAero, and it is an engineering school for aeronautics students. They have a debate team, and I learned through a friend that they were looking for someone to help the team practice. I did debate in high school, so I went to their first meeting and spoke with the coach, who is thrilled for me to come. I'll go once a week, every Tuesday night, and help the team prepare for their meets. The students who debate are foreign themselves -- I met two from Belgium, one from Germany, and one from Sweden. Next week there will be more, and I don't doubt it will be a good time.
This brings me to the name of this post, "Arrêtez là! Montrez-moi vos papiers d'identité!" For those who know French, you know that means "Stop there! Show me your identity papers!" Yes, that was said to me. Yes, by a police officer. The director of my program, Madame Toux, told us that the French police would often stop young people and ask for identity papers, just as a means of keeping a tight lid on security. Well, this happened to me the other night as I left the metro. It was around 11:30 p.m., and as I exited the metro a French police officer with a rather large gun told me to stop. Freaked out, I immediately blurted "I'm an American student!" as if that gave me a free pass to just do whatever I wanted. He looked me over and said (in French), "Yes, obviously you are, but you still have identity papers and I still want to see them." So I showed him the copy of my passport and was on my way. In retrospect it wasn't such a big deal, but at the time I was convinced this was the equivalent of passing a NATO check point in Afghanistan or something far more serious.
One thing I've noticed is that the French love to party. And by party I mean protest. A lot. I've already seen two such demonstrations -- one against the use of animal fur for clothing, and one against high taxes. The animal fur protest was much more exciting. The demonstrators were a young group, lots of piercings and ripped clothes, and hair colored with every shade of the rainbow. In the middle of the march a dozen or so protestors were wearing doctors' scrubs from head to toe, including a surgical mask. And each of them were carrying the skinned carcass of a pig -- I know, that makes no sense since pigs don't have fur and I'm pretty sure we don't use their skin for leather. I think it was simply a representation of dead animals and using fur in general. Either way it was disgusting. I was sitting at an outdoor café at the time, and the gentleman next to me suddenly turned to his wife and said, "Shit, I'm wearing fur, I need to get the hell out of here!" and he stood up and disappeared. Good thing he did, because the protestors were going from person to person and yelling at those who had fur for being animal torturers. The protest against high taxes was far less exciting, but it did block the road and therefore my bus route, making me late for class.
The biggest event of the past few days, and the most disappointing, was that I had my debit card and all the money in my wallet stolen. Yes, I've been in Europe for only 9 days and I've already been robbed. I'm not sure where it happened exactly because I didn't know until well after it happened, but my best guess is that I put my wallet down in the bar the other night and someone came over and snagged my money. I only lost 20 euros and cancelled my card immediately, but it was still a mental blow. Unfortunately I wasn't the only one -- a girl in my program lost some euros, and another friend had his card stolen and the burglar immediately withdrew almost 200 euros from his account. It really sucks but it happens, and it is a reminder that I have to be vigilant when out at night in a big city such as Toulouse. I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore.
Thanks for everyone who is reading the blog, it's a fun way to keep track of my trip and to let friends and family know how I'm doing. I plan on posting pictures as soon as possible, but I forgot to bring my camera cord so I need to buy one in order to transfer the pictures to my computer. In the mean time, I'll just post some pictures that my friends took and put on Facebook. Remember to subscribe to the blog on the right hand side so you can get email updates! Bonne nuit!
The city center, called "La place du Capitole." The building shown is the town hall.
A town square in the heart of Toulouse.
Le Canal du Midi, a canal that runs through the middle of the city.
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