Going to europe 2013!!

[Nishin]

Yes, that's the place. Filled with Bonnes Soeurs and fun stuff like that.

I do plan on visiting different parts of France. I am going to go to Normandy and Lille to see friends. One is gay, one is straight.

I don't know whether or not I should get a EUrail pass, they seem more expensive than planes..... And a lot slower.

I love the train and will usually go for it for short distance trips, I probably don't have the same definition of "short" than most though...
I enjoyed having he pass in Italy or Spain, although I also took buses in the latter ; It will be useful in France... forget it if you travel in Greece.
It true that flights are much faster (obviously) and cheaper, especially the low-cost ones...
If you drive you could also rent a car in some places, I think it's not too expensive in Spain...

Normandy.... bah, I think you better go for the South (Atlantic to Mediterranean coast/Italy !) but that's just me and my love of Sun

 

[youfiad]

I agree with you entirely. I would love to go to the south, but I would love to go there with some gay friends and just chill. It's not one of those things that I would fine fun to do by myself..... I would really love to be able to work in France or a European country for awhile to give myself time to enjoy the continent while simultaneously making money so that I can financially support myself, but it's nearly impossible for an American to obtain a work visa.

There are so many options for me right now, I just hope that it all works out in the end!!!! :-D

 

[Nice Boy]

Hi

Cool to have such a trip in Europe! I'm in Slovakia but if you ever come to Austria, Vienna, I'd love to see you since it is not so far Update us with your trip plans

 

[youfiad]

Hi

Cool to have such a trip in Europe! I'm in Slovakia but if you ever come to Austria, Vienna, I'd love to see you since it is not so far Update us with your trip plans

Will do! I just need to start making some decisions and booking stuff!!

How old are you guys by the way?

 

[Nishin]

I agree with you entirely. I would love to go to the south, but I would love to go there with some gay friends and just chill. It's not one of those things that I would fine fun to do by myself..... I would really love to be able to work in France or a European country for awhile to give myself time to enjoy the continent while simultaneously making money so that I can financially support myself, but it's nearly impossible for an American to obtain a work visa.

There are so many options for me right now, I just hope that it all works out in the end!!!! :-D

Maybe you could settle in London for a while and start from there ... maybe as an American it is easier to get a work permit there, and it has such easy access to the rest of Europe ...
This said London is pretty expensive and you'd need a very good position to be able to afford the cost of living PLUS having time and money to travel around...

Do you still have friends here left form the time you spent in Paris?

 

[youfiad]

I do still have friends from around paris and France in general.

How do you Europeans afford the high cost of living and still afford to enjoy doing extra things?!

 

[Nishin]

I do still have friends from around paris and France in general.

How do you Europeans afford the high cost of living and still afford to enjoy doing extra things?!

We don't live in London

Seriously, I don't think the everyday guy travels all that much, I am lucky to have a job that allows me too, I usually arrange to take vacation just following a business trip so that I can at least save on the flight...

There are cheap buses too (Eurolines), so if you manage to make friends here and there (from boards, couchsurfing, etc etc) you'd just have to pay for the ride and food

 

[youfiad]

Well I know, but you live in Paris, whcih is also very expensive. I'm going to try a little bit of French

Quand j'assistais a la catho, je prenais mon dejeuner a une sandwicherie dans le 6e chaque jour (le petit lux --- je conseille que tu vas pour prendre un sandwich jambon crudites!! FANTASTIQUE) et je depensais 5 euros chaque sandwich... le loyer, encore pire, meme dansles banlieues. Je payais 400 euros par mois (ce qui comprenais ptit dej, diner et un lit). Javais ma propre chambre, mais elle etait pleine de trucs de l'enfant de la famille et j'avais nulle part pour marcher.

You're lucky that your job allows you to travel!! I would love to have a job that allows me to do that some day, especially one that would allow me to live in a country for a year, then send me to another country.. maybe every 2-3 years I guess sothat I get time to learn the langauge and meet people)

 

[Nishin]

Well I know, but you live in Paris, whcih is also very expensive. I'm going to try a little bit of French

Quand j'assistais a la catho, je prenais mon dejeuner a une sandwicherie dans le 6e chaque jour (le petit lux --- je conseille que tu vas pour prendre un sandwich jambon crudites!! FANTASTIQUE) et je depensais 5 euros chaque sandwich... le loyer, encore pire, meme dansles banlieues. Je payais 400 euros par mois (ce qui comprenais ptit dej, diner et un lit). Javais ma propre chambre, mais elle etait pleine de trucs de l'enfant de la famille et j'avais nulle part pour marcher.

You're lucky that your job allows you to travel!! I would love to have a job that allows me to do that some day, especially one that would allow me to live in a country for a year, then send me to another country.. maybe every 2-3 years I guess sothat I get time to learn the langauge and meet people)

I wish I had a job that took me to foreign countries for a couple years at the time as well... my missions are usually jut a few days short, but I won't complain it's already a great chance...
Yes Paris is very expensive, as you rightly experienced, cruelly so... the rent for my small 1room flat is 755€, and I'm not even intra-muros !
I'll try that sandwich place out if I ever go in the area ... although like a(n almost) true French I'll need some cheese in that !
Tu parles très très bien français, man you must have spent hoooooooooours learning the masculin/féminin and tenses !

 

[youfiad]

Le Petit Lux does have cheese in the sandwich, if I remember correctly. It's Emmental.

I didn't really have problems learning French. I know it's a little weird, but it all made sense to me.... But it completely helps that I understand English well, which doesn't differ all that much from French. So I didn't really have to relearn the tenses, or the concordences des temps. The only thing that bothered me slightly was the masculin and feminin, but those really weren't hard either.. Now, I've been rusty, especially speaking orally, but I pick it back up very quickly.

I am not exactly sure what intra-muros means but I'm sure it means, "Within the city limits" (Intra-within) (Muros-murs-walls)?

All of this talk really makes me miss living abroad!! I really miss being aroudn Europeans (the nice ones at least). I've always wanted to date europeans!!!

 

[Nishin]

I was wondering, since you're from Saint Cloud... could it be that is was founded by French immigrants from the Paris' area? Are there many people of French descent in your town?

Concordence des temps is a bitch to many French people, as about the masculin/féminin things, obviously I don't have a problem with it in French but I can relate to foreigners struggling with it since they are often different in other European languages, some of the latter even having a third, neutral gender, like German... Thinking of it once I could elaborate a theory to "guess" gender in French in the following : If it's big it will be Masculin if it's small(er) it will be Féminin... it doesn't always work but it seems to work for some things (provided you have enough vocabulary to know several objects from the same lexical family)...
ie: UN ordinateur / UNE calculatrice ; UN fauteuil / UNE chaise ; UN océan / UNE mer ; LE soleil / LA lune etc etc ...

You are right about intra-muros, it's used to describe cities inside walls... Paris doesn't have walls anymore, but the périphérique highway was built on the old walls and surrounds the city, so we call the inside of Paris intra-muros (basically Zone 1 on the tube map)

 

[youfiad]

From wikipedia "John Wilson, a Maine native with French Huguenot ancestry and an interest in Napoleon, named the settlement St. Cloud after Saint-Cloud, the Paris suburb where Napoleon had his favorite palace" -- I wasn't raised here, I just go to school here, and I plan to leave the second I graduate, because I absolutely hate the town.

I have noticed that a lot of people that I saw struggling with the concordence des temps were the people that were really bad in their own native languages. I've always been a person who has stressed proper speaking and grammar, so I already knew the tenses in English and how they should be used in conjunction with sentences -- and many of them, or most, are identicle. I just got used to how words sounds and wether or not they will be masculin or feminine. For example, any word that ends in --age will be masculin. There are many rules like that. Also, words that end with an e tend to be fiminine. But after awhile I just sort of knew and didn't really question it. I still think that it's a useless aspect of the language and English got rid of its 3 genders hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

 

[Nishin]

Haa a Napoleon admirer... lol that sounds surreal
Anyway, yeah eventually genders are learned by use. I do agree that they don't serve any obvious purpose, perhaps they're good for poetry and imagery (since we're born using them I feel we can hardly picture object without them... even when I speak english, the object I'm talking about keeps its gender/"sex" in my mind...).

So have you made your mind up about which countries you'll be visiting yet?
Where will you be staying in each place? Housing is gonna be expensive if you have to go to hotels... are you couch-surfing?

 

[youfiad]

Well, as I've said, I am for sure going to visit Ireland Scotland and England, as well as France. I would love to visit Italy and maybe Germany and Maybe Denmark, but I am not entirely sure that will happen this time. I will probably be coming back during 2014 with my sister.

I realize that housing is going to be expensive, and I've been trying to avoid answering where I am going to stay because honestly, I have no idea for some of it. I know that I am invited to stay at my Ex's family's house, but they aregoing to be in the south for august.. My ex invited me to Spainwith him and some gay friends... But I'm not sure, I've had bad experiences with his friends. Couch surfing always sounds fun, mais j'aimerais bien rester chez quelqu'un de beau qui est abonneur sur ce site quand je suis en ecosse haha.. Je pourrais tres bien payer en faveurs