French Class

I found some French classes.

This is a good thing, because I need to learn French while I'm here.  There are a few options for classes. Private tutors cost somewhere around 30 Euros an hour, so my language budget would be eaten up in about 90 minutes.  The campus across the street from our building, the VUB, Vriaje (“free” in Dutch) University Brussels, with whom we share library facilities, had classes available, but the beginning French class filled up before I could enroll. So when my friend Holly told me that she received an email telling her that classes were available in the VUB language center I was eager to enroll.

Holly told me to show up at 11 am on Monday at the language center, which is actually in an annex office in our building. When I arrived, she told me that the classes were actually in an hour on the main campus across the street, in room A302. Holly couldn't make it, so I did some work for a bit and then headed off to find the classroom.

I couldn't find building “A”, so I went to the library to ask one of the clerks. He showed me a map of the campus and told me that there was no building A. The buildings started at B and went up to M or so. To this day I'm not sure why they would skip A in naming their buildings, but I'm sure it's due to some sort of centuries-old spat with the French.

I was confused so I called Holly. She was positive that this was the class number that she was told. We finally realized that the letter “E” is pronounced like “A” in Dutch. Maybe it was E302?

I trudged over to building E and found E302. It was empty. But a class was entering room E304 as I walked up, and I asked them what they were learning. French. Success! I walked in with them and took a seat. The instructor came in and sat down and talked for about 2 minutes in French. I pretended to take notes while I wondered what the hell kind of beginner's class this was. Finally he asked in English if everyone was there to translate French poetry into Dutch. Four of us looked around and stood up. “Non” we replied and shuffled out.

That's when I met my language class. We stood outside the classroom and compared notes. “They told me it was a beginner's class.” “Yeah, me too.” “Where do we go?” “Back to the language center, I guess?” We introduced ourselves. Jesus (Hay-soos) is an exchange student from Spain, Basia is a Pole working as a research assistant, and her Polish boyfriend is Mathew who is a grad student. We headed back over to the language center in my building.

We entered the language center and found an administrator, who appeared flustered and apologized for the scheduling error, and then out of nowhere Madam Avril appeared. “There you are! Bonjour! My classe!” She is a 5 foot tall woman, French I think, about 60 and with curly gray hair. “Come this way!”

She led us to an office with circular table, where two women in their 20's sat. “Here you go. Sit! Do you want coffee? Yes? No. Water? No?” The two women, who must be grad students, spoke in French introducing themselves and then translated what they said into broken English. They asked a little about us, and then began teaching us some French. “Sur la tabla.” She put a cup over the table. “Sous la tabla.” Madam Avril crawled under the table. Jesus clutched his bag close to him.

The lesson didn't last long. They explained that due to the scheduling mishap and the fact that they didn't know who was going to show up that they didn't have a lesson prepared. We would start la semaine prochaine. We left without any registration details. They didn't ask us for any enrollment information, or any money. They said that we could invite whoever we want to the class. It was odd, and to be honest I think we might be part of some psychology project, but I've never had a class with a 4:3 student to teacher ratio so I'm not going to argue.

School on the whole is going well. One of my teachers was one of the negotiators for the Good Friday Peace Accord, in Northern Ireland in 1997. It's kind of funny how your best laid plans can fall to pieces in front of you, and then you can fall ass backward into what it is you've been looking for. C'est la vie.