What's Your Idiom?

So the other day, after drinking a scalding double espresso made potable with liberal amounts of raw cane sugar, I was feeling like I’d just taken some liquid speed, and therefore decided to try to find something to temper it with. Making my way from the olive tapenade vendor to the fresh baguette man (his baguettes were fresh, not him), my path was obstructed by the elderly French. Normally, gentlemen like the two I came upon are quiet, dignified, and reserved. They move along at a rousing escargot’s pace…but, as always, there are exceptions. This was emphasized when the slightly less feeble one grabbed his associate’s bum and barked like a dog, causing the latter man to chase chased the former into my path, mumbling French somethings, and an expression I’ve learned in class: translated, it’s “you’re stupid as feet.”

And…what the heck was all that about? It seems there’s a lot that gets lost in translation here, and even if I did have a complete grasp of French language and grammar, more often than not, still I’d be at a loss for words. Plus, I’m not even going to make a guess at non-verbal idioms.

My 202 professor is French (I may have mentioned this), and I think that she feels her duty is not only to hand us the reins of Francais, but also to impart some further understanding into French culture…through language. Which I like, being a closet psycholinguist. Already, my first exam in her class has included a whole section that required knowledge of the vocabulary of idioms. If you are “haute comme trois pommes” (high as three apples) like me, you’re a very small person; if you “n’as pas froid aux yeux” (don’t have cold eyes), you are fearless – particularly when it comes to displays of athleticism; if you are “fleur bleu” (blue flower), you’re a hopeless romantic. I suppose that last one comes from the German philosopher Novalis and the Romanticism movement. But now I’m just showing off.

To me, it’s interesting that English – a language that is perhaps 30% of French origin – has so few idiomatic overlaps. The only one we covered that corresponds is “memory like an elephant.” Actually, French people also say “j’al la pêche” when they’re feeling good, but I’m refuse to count this one, because who actually says they’re feeling peachy anymore? (Put your hands down, you. You should be ashamed of yourself.) And why the elephant one made the leap, I have no clue. Can anyone get me a study of elephantine cognitive powers?

As English-speakers, we don’t often think about the absolutely insane things we say (a little bird told me, I’ll eat my hat, straight-faced, etc.)…the same, I suppose, goes for the French. Most of the time when Isabelle or some other miscellaneous French person throws out an idiom, I don’t even catch it, or I think I’ve simply misheard. I have, however, asked for several particularly odd ones to be repeated that were just too strange to be missed. It’s hard to get them explained, but from my understanding…

For instance: “avoir le cafard” (to have the cockroach) is to be down in the dumps. Well, obviously. Who wants a cockroach? Incidentally, I asked about that one because I thought I heard the word “canard,” and I can’t seem to let go of any duck references.

Or, if you’d rather give out the cafard than get it, you can tell someone “aller se faire voir chez les grecs” (to go show oneself among the Greeks), or to go to hell…I’m not an expert on French history, but what have they got against the Greeks? Maybe it’s outmoded, and the new, updated expression has something to do with italiens. Damn azzurri.

Finally, the most colorful one I’ve found is “gagner les doigts dans le nez” - I’ll readily admit that my grasp of French prepositions is poor, but I believe this means to win with one’s fingers in their nose. Or in English, to win easily. Enough said.

So now you know (and I know) some useful expressions that might color up my experience here in Provence. And all this will hopefully have me speaking like a regular native and not “comme une vache espagnole" - a Spanish cow.  Still, I don’t think I’m fooling anyone…all my French prof’s efforts to teach me how to speak like the French isn’t worth a hill of beans if I can’t properly conjugate the verb “s’asseoir” and I can’t say it in the correct accent. Oh, well (tant pis)...c'est la vie.

C'est la Guerre

Okay...I haven't really got enough anecdotal or philosophical nonsense, so today is going to be one of those "random day-in-the-life" entries. I know, it's tedious and not cohesive, but it's practically Thursday and I don't want you guys to feel abandoned. I'll try to keep it brief at least, and I'll try to do better next time.

So, bad news…when I first came here, after I got attacked by an angry mob of mosquitoes, Isabelle gave me a little plug thing that lets off time-released poisonous gasses. Or something. That’s not the bad news. The bad news is, it’s out of poisonous gasses, and I’ve already got one bug bite on my ankle and something on my arm that is forming a hideously alarming (if tiny) blood blister. I am going to have to guard my face and toes especially well tonight…and I know you’re thinking, “wait, whaa? toes?” which just goes to show, you have never had a bug bite on your toes.

In other news, it’s about a zillion degrees in Aix. I’ve been reassured that this is normal – apparently the French are as bad as the English when it comes to talking about the weather – and I’m overjoyed, really I am, that it’s not muggy and humid, but…when I grow up, I’m buying a house in Iceland. Today, for my French 202 class, the professor (a really nice, but certifiably insane French woman who likes to take us “into the field”) decided that we should go on a walk to a park, and to a factory in said park that makes tiny clay statues. Also today, for my French 201 class, I had to bring in three textbooks, a French-English dictionary, and a reference book of French verbs for an in-class written assessment. In conclusion, I took a long, cool shower after the 30-minute hike down and the 30-minute hike back. …Ta-da!

Actually, the past 24 hours as a whole have been an adventure. Last night, after lying around in my underwear, finishing two books, and eating an entire box of tic-tacs, I went out to a café wearing a cloche and bright red lipstick (among other things, obviously). I got a lot of looks from a lot of French men, so I don’t know…does bucket hat + vibrant lip color = fille publique? Or maybe there was something stuck to my shoe. Or maybe I’m out of style. Anyway, at the café, was a lot of intense techno, so I got less studying done than I had planned. I have two tests tomorrow (why am I blogging?)…on the other hand, I’m not really that worried, because I only need to get a C in these classes. Although, I know how to get an A, and I know (in theory) how to get an F (the theory is: do nothing), but I’m not really sure about the work ethic of a C grade. Most of my studying so far has been to sit in coffee shops and bookstores and restaurants and silently rehears what I might say if anyone were to approach me. We’ll see how it goes

This morning, I got up at eight, nearly fell out the window while jumping out of my lofty bed, nearly stepped on cat puke (gross, Malicious…), nearly scarred my face permanently with a hair straightener (I sleepily scalded my arm instead), and nearly was late to class thanks to a bowl of cereal. Classes, other than the above, were fairly unremarkable. Around 4pm it had cooled a bit, so I went to another café to study (will I ever learn?) and to get a cool drink. I ate some kind of Algerian fruit that might be called a “niffle” and got in an argument about whether the English word for “niffle” was kumquat (it’s NOT).

Isabelle wasn’t home for dinner, but her niece Marie came over and made me some delicious saucisson (that’s French for sausage, you guys). This horrible thought is slowly occurring to me that Isabelle doesn’t use any garlic, it seems…this upsets me. Maybe she doesn’t like the thought of it oozing out her pores. Also, she seems to have issues storing leftovers in the fridge – she just puts them in there without saran wrap or Tupperware top or anything, so everything starts to taste like fridge after a day.

After dinner, I tend to walk around the block briskly (thanks to my iPod) and look longingly in shop windows. This may or may not help my French skills. Or my social skills. However, I like to be shockingly optimistic and claim that I’m slowly improving my French, at least, citing the (dubious) facts that I can understand a lot more than I can say, that I am starting to think in French, etc. I’m thinking that one of my biggest language problems (well, okay, in addition to the other big problems, like verbs, and verb tenses, and determiners, and prepositions…) is that I don’t have a big enough vocabulary. I must sound like a complete dunce when I speak French…not only am I grammatically incorrect, I can also only talk about things like, say, pencil cases (les trousses). In the park this afternoon, we sat in a circle on the grass and did little oral presentations based on topics drawn from a hat. My question was about which books I liked, which sounds like a good one for me, but in fact, requires all kinds of things I don’t know how to say. First, I awkwardly forgot everything about the verb lire (to read) except that it's irregular and the past participle is “lu,” and then I realized I never knew how to say things like "science fiction," "pride and prejudice," "world war two historical fiction," "non fiction," or "actually, I make it a policy not to have favorites."

C’est la guerre.

Well, I hear some cats yowling in the courtyard, which makes me think I’ve gone on enough so that only those of you who truly love me will have gotten this far, so I’m off to study les verbes. A toute à l'heure!

Musique dans la Rue

Aix is already a town with operas spilling out of second-story windows and buskers on every other block. It stands to reason, therefore, that in addition to being famous as a town with tons of fountains (Aix apparently meaning water), it’s also known for its music, and this culminates in a music festival held once a year.

I kicked off the festival Friday evening by going to an aperitif “party” and then heading to hear several bands from Buenos Aires play their pianos dramatically, their violins sobbingly, and their accordions accordingly. The show was held on a stage set up in the square at the end of the Cours Mirabeau, which provided everyone present with a perfect opportunity to tango. Would you believe me if I told you I’d danced the tango? A Spanish dance with a French man in a crowded square in Provence? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. How well you know me…still, wouldn’t that have been interesting.

Saturday, I wandered around the streets, listening to various guitarists, flautists, accordion-ists, singers, and the odd rock band set up on the sidewalk. In the heat of the afternoon, I made my way through shops and shadowed stoops to a café, where I cracked the spine of my weathered (and crayon-covered) copy of Pride and Prejudice, watched the tall bus-boy gingerly stoop to place overflowing drinks on tiny tables, and had a brief conversation with an English man about why my iced coffee was mesmerizingly falling out of suspension.

On Saturday evening, the hipsters emerged from cellars and art schools and spilled onto the streets. They stood in front of subwoofers and played their bass guitars and danced frenetically wearing tight jeans and scarves. I’ve noticed that the French, as a general rule, have a great fear of appearing foolish, and I tentatively hypothesize not only that this stems naturally from a culture where children are raised not so much on positive feedback as negative reinforcement, but also that the ensuing insecurity and fear of embarrassment lead to the appearance of the people as being aloof and forbearing. This relates (tenuously) because the French seem to have two ways of dancing: the first, primarily demonstrated by the old and/or sober, consists of standing quietly and head-bobbing or toe-tapping; the second is over-the-top where the first was understated, and is punctuated by a lot of laughing, as if to say, “oh hahaha, I’m only joking, isn’t this absurd.”

At 9:30, after a delicious dinner of artichoke something, I put on my chucks and my Ray Ban wayfarers and joined/observed them, upon which point my camera battery abruptly died. The air was full of smoke and sound (and the roads were full of bodies and booze). People were continually stopping in front of me, juggling uncorked bottles of wine and greeting friends exuberantly, kissing cheeks and grabbing hands and leading each other into the streets. It surprised me that, in addition to the college-aged population, there were also old men and women (who sat to the side, covered their ears, and puffed out their cheeks, and then joined the throng), and also young – apparently unsupervised – children holding hands and scurrying underfoot. There was rap and reggae and rock, ska and shoegaze, and other non-alliterative genres, like jazz, electronica, classical, art rock, ad nauseam. Also lots of cover bands. I stayed out until I couldn’t swallow because of the heat and the smoke, and I came home and fell asleep to the sound of drums.

Sunday morning I was awakened by the cat. I decided to venture out for breakfast – shops appear to be closed on Sundays, but cafés and brasseries are decidedly not. It was clear that the street cleaners had already been through the area; with the exception of some ground-up glass, a residual musician or two, and either a) melted ice cream or b) a hastily-revisited dinner in the stairwell a flight below my door, there was little evidence of the boisterous crowd from the night before. Aix was returning to normal.

I ate breakfast at L’Unic Brasserie, where the young waiter (who was wearing my favorite: black collared shirt, jeans, and fast-looking black leather oxfords…although I could have done without the chain around his neck) looked at me strangely when I said I didn’t want any jelly, jam, marmalade, or preserves with my chocolate croissant, and then laughed at me when it came with a buttered baguette and I decided I needed raspberry jam after all. The rest of the afternoon and evening were devoted to walking around and lounging about, and finally sitting down to my homework…nothing too interesting on that front.

And that, pretty much, is my first weekend in Aix.

More on Chez Moi

So, I realized I'd never completely introduced Isabelle or the rest of my flatmates...

My “host mother” really isn’t much of a mother figure at all, which isn’t to say that she’s not helpful or understanding, but just that she’s not really the maternal sort (at least, in the way I’ve come to know it). Isabelle (formerly known as Mme. Godin), has been, I believe, divorced at least twice, has a grown daughter living in Canada, and a grown son living in London. She hosts me, Veronique, and Morgan because she likes having people in the house. She’s looks to be aged somewhere between an old-ish 35 and a young-ish 65. Or, I’m not very good at estimating age. She works most of the day as a grade-school teacher, and this predisposes her, I think, to tolerate my stumbling speech and erratic behavior. Like all of the French families hosting, I think she has a certain need to culture me (as France is the most civilized country in the world), and at dinner she brings out certain cheeses and wines and so on and tells me what they are and how they are consumed.

When Isabelle comes home, she drops an armful of elementary art or writing on the table, which the cat promptly sits on contentedly. Isabelle has few house rules, often has guests over late at night, and, at my behest, speaks to me only in French. I think that she (and probably everyone else living with me) finds me an odd sort of tenant…I don’t come late at night on a Tuesday evening smelling like Pastis, and I frequently pack my book of 501 French verbs in my purse before heading out for the evening, which, I hear, is quite different from the behavior of the two Californians who lived here before me. Isabelle has a great and abiding love for the band Coldplay, which she plays more or less constantly over the speakers in her area of the house. It’s a bit strange to hear Parachutes wafting out of the speakers – I haven’t listened to that album for two years at least, and it’s odd to be thinking of humid summer drives to Pittsburgh or Sewickley Heights while surrounded by France. Isabelle also has an apparent obsession for white, breezy clothes and healthy eating. I am slowly being indoctrinated into the French woman’s secret club of thinness and eternal beauty…it has a lot to do with facial creams, olive oil, small portions of fresh food, and liberal glasses of white wine (and perhaps the occasional “death in the afternoon”).

Isabelle’s cat – Malicious – has finally, begrudgingly, decided to accept me. She no longer perches at the top of the ladder to my bed and scratches for my face, and when I try to pet her, she bats at my hand with sheathed claws. Malicious is definitely the strangest cat I’ve ever seen: she is a very vocal cat, and meows like a dog would bark whenever Isabelle or any of the other girls comes home. She’s also very acrobatic, and jumps up on windowsills and furniture (such as the dinner table while we’re eating – Isabelle blows raspberries at her, but doesn’t make her get down, because Malicious never actually tries to eat anything, but just sits directly on the pile of schoolwork set at the end of the table). For some unknown reason, Malicious loves to writhe about on the floor for minutes at a time, stretching and curling like a worm. Occasionally she will behave more like a normal cat, and I caught her once stalking a moth under my desk. Good kitty.

Both Veronique and Morgan are French students with jobs, and they're out often working or socializing, and I do not eat dinner with them. I haven’t seen much of Veronique recently – I think she’s in Paris – and most of my interaction with Morgan consists of smiling, pointing, and apologizing, as she has a thick accent and speaks very rapidly. Kind of like me in English, I think. I’ve met some of the friends of Isabelle and Morgan – Isabelle’s niece Marie, for instance, or Serge, or Marc – who typically just say, “bonjour” or “bonsoir,” startle me by swooping towards me and kissing my cheeks, and then ignoring me and continuing whatever conversation I’ve interrupted by my trip into the living room.

It’s funny, being a foreigner. I’ve always thought of myself as, although often a bit of an outsider, at least still in the general majority. Here, though, I am an alien. This was made clear to me (although maybe not to everyone) during orientation, when one of the American guys in my class asked the panel of French students where some good foreign night life was, and they directed him to a club which I later determined to cater primarily to Americans and Brits. Everyone says before you leave for a foreign country as a college student that the experience will “change your life.” The pressure’s on, I thought, and then initially was confused and disappointed when I realized I’d already been to Europe several times, and that it wasn’t the culture shock, the blasting away of quaint American idealism or narcissism that it might otherwise have been. However, I’m starting to realize (and I hope I’m not mistaken) that just by being here entirely on my own, by participating and observing, I am definitely very able to learn some things about this culture and my own, these other people and myself. And there shouldn’t be any pressure to this informal education. As far as I can see, there’s no right or wrong way to go about it, and no final lesson that needs to be learned. But, I (tediously) digress. We’ll see what happens after another five weeks?

Oh lalala lala lalaaa

I’ve just come back from doing my “devoirs” at a little restaurant, accordion man and all, where I was looking for quiche but ended up with crème brulée and an apple juice that was unlike any state-side apple juice I’ve ever had. More green-appley. And no, I didn’t accidentally say crème brulée when I meant something else – they were sold out of the tarte of the day.

However, just because I managed to get what I’d asked for (that time) doesn’t mean I haven’t messed up. I once tried to ask for some goat cheese and Isabelle got me a chair instead…so today, I think, I’ll talk about some of the mistakes I’ve heard and seen so far. The day of the faux pas.

To start us off strong, I’ll go for a genuine faux pas: if you are a tourist, and you see some outdoor café tables in a square, say by a fountain or a church or what have you, you are not allowed to just plunk down and put your feet up if you feel like it. Not even if you’ve got a Panini or something you brought from home. Those tables belong to an actual café (hence, café tables), and the proprietor of said café will come out and yell at you in rapid French if you try to pull such a stunt. I advise buying your Panini from the café and saving yourself some trouble.

And now, a bit of a rant: I am annoyed at all the crazy American women who come to France to binge on French wine and French men. When they warned us in orientation on Monday that the girls especially should try not to smile so much because it sends the wrong message, I thought, “Oh, the wrong message. So there’s a cultural gap where friendliness is taken as a come-on.” But no, in fact, I’ve found the system to be a little different. Today (the second day of classes!), one of the students in my class took the ten-minute break as an opportunity to pass her digital camera around and elaborately act out to all of us how she got some “rose wine” at a store and got to jump in a fountain and got yelled at by the police and got escorted home by a guy on a Vespa and got highly (but not really) affronted when he asked her, “do you want to be touched by a French man?” etc. And perhaps now I sound like a prude, but this is ruining it for the rest of us, who want to go to a discotheque and dance around a bit, but all the French guys expect us to illegally douse ourselves in public spaces in a few minutes if just they hang around.

Which leads me (tangentially) to how I do not appear to be fitting in entirely well with the other American students. I know, it’s only been two days of classes…I’m a bit reluctant to thoroughly introduce further characters just yet, as I haven’t really met anyone that I can see myself hanging out with permanently (read: 5.5 weeks)…I’ve shared my textbook with Jonathan, found out I shared a birth date with Charity and Ashley, did a presentation with Nick, and showed Danielle where the library was, but…well, who knows.

I do feel kind of aged and decrepit, though, because I spend my mornings perusing fruit markets, my afternoons studying French grammar in cafés, and my evenings reading books or, as with last night, watching France spectacularly lose any chance of Eurocup. And maybe the weekend I will go to a boite (the supercool word for club) or travel around…I want to go to Corsica. (!!!) I’ve found a fantastic Anglaise bookstore/bar (called Book In Bar – shocking) that I have a feeling will be one of my haunts. And I’m not going to feel guilty about it. So there.

Right…back to the blunders.

I think a lot of us students have the perfect phrase with the perfect pronunciation in our heads and it comes out as mush the second we open our mouths. There have already been mix-ups in class with the French words for hair and horse, full and pregnant, and something about a bear that I didn’t get, but which the prof (Monsieur S.) found hysterical. Also, I’m still afraid to say, “I’m hungry,” when I might accidentally say, “I have a wife” (classic Dana, no?). And it appears I’m not the only one who knows a bit of Spanish.

I’m sorry to say that I haven’t got any photos for you today; I have always been an awkward photo-taker, and I can’t manage to suavely pull out the camera and force every stranger around me to group together for a picture. For all I know, I’d be getting some confused French kids in the pictures, as well. I also don’t really have any new pictures of the city – on Monday it rained, and yesterday I was at class or busy (napping). Also, I feel that I’m starting to get good at the disillusioned French walk, and I’m reluctant to totally blow my cover by whipping out the camera. Although I guess I’m overestimating my acculturation skills and am probably totally recognizable as “that strange, bug-bitten American.” Blech.

I just read over that and it sounds a bit negative? I am having a good time, though.

Misadventures in the Bathroom

I was planning on doing a piece about the general oddness of French bathrooms and plumbing a bit later on in my stay, but I've just walked in on an old French woman peeing in this cafe bathroom, so I figure, why delay the inevitable?

There is nothing like a French bathroom, except maybe an Italian bathroom. Hm this post is starting off well...there is nothing like a European bathroom. In France, and I believe in Italy and Spain and maybe even England, when you're out and you need to use the facilities, you don't ask for the bathrooms, you ask for the toilets. I never really understood why this was, however, until this trip; I have yet to see an Aixian room, in hotel, apartment, or (obviously) tiny cafe where the toilet is housed along with the bath. It just must not make sense, therefore, to ask for the bathroom when what you really want is a place to wee.

So yes...the French woman seemed perfectly cool with me coming in on her while she was indisposed (lock the door, lady!), which was alarming, but not as alarming as the state of the toilette itself. Strangely, the shining porcelain structure seemed to take up the central focus of the (very small) room, which was mainly because it had been wired to sit at least a foot out from the wall. Also, it had no seat. This must have caused folks such as said old woman to become unbalanced, for the floor was...well, anyways. At least there was a sink.

Which is more than can be said for the toilet-rooms in both the hotel and the apartment where I'm currently staying. Before you leap away aghast from the computer screen (in the irrational fear, I'm supposing, that my filthy fingers have somehow transmitted their diseased state electronically through miles and miles to come spilling out of your monitor), yes, there is a sink, but it's in a room of its own, with the bath or shower, a mirror, etc. The toilet (and the bidet...and I am not even going there) (or, in the case of my apartment, and the washing machine) get to be alone. It's weird. And, I think, inconvenient.

Which brings me to the "shower" facilities. Why can no one get this? What is so difficult about thinking up a place to clip the showerhead for when you want to wash your hair? I guess I can accept the desire to hold it two inches from your foot, especially in such a dry and dusty climate, but what about the rest of the time, messieursdames? Alsooo, do we really need to force the shower into a 2x2 foot box? With a 1-inch lip? And a flimsy (water-absorbent???) curtain? We've already taken the toilet (and bidet, and washing machine) out of the picture, let's at least expand the dimensions of the shower. The mini-shower nearly decapitated me when I tried to lean down to wash the soap off of my legs with the detachable showerhead and then stood up again, only to bash my thoracic vertebrae forcibly against the water pressure knob. Yes, ouch.

At least the water pressure is strong. Knock on wood...

La Fille Seule

I've asked Veronique, one of the other two girls living in the apartment (not including the ever-elusive Mme. Godin...and the cat...) the difference between the French verbs "retourner" and "revenir." It appears that the former means to go back and the latter means to come back. There's an element of turning around in retourner that isn't included in revenir. Either way, Mom has now retourner-ed to les EEUU, and I am alone in Aix. The plus side is, I can't get any aloner than this; classes haven't started yet, and I haven't made any French friends to speak of, with the dubious exception of the cat. Another plus side is, of course, that I don't mind being alone at all.

And now a brief digression to introduce the cast of characters I have so far encountered. First, there's Mme's niece, Marie, who is approximately my age, but chic and French. She picked me up at the hotel, which was very alarming, as I didn't realize for a few minutes that she wasn't Mme Godin herself. Marie took me to the apartment, where I was introduced to Veronique, a friendly student (with "exciting hair", it appears) from somewhere island-ish/Africa (??) who is studying French and African languages, and who seems very willing to speak French to me and who will tolerate my gaffes. Marie also introduced me to the Cat, whose name may be Lisse, but who I shall be calling Malicious, as that is how she was introduced. Marie indicated, in broken English still better than my French, that the cat "appears that it wants to be...hugged?...and then *clawing motion* griffes." Malicious has already staked out the area of loft bed immediately above the ladder required to get to said loft bed, and seems wary of rapid movements, but tolerant of my presence. Getting into bed tonight may be tricky.

Other people I have yet to meet include the third tenant, Morgan, and Mme, who I think I am supposed to call Isabelle. She could not meet me tonight because she is either (a) at a 50th birthday party for a friend, or (b) at a wedding shower, either (i) for herself, or (ii) for a friend. I am not sure...but I have a feeling that you might be getting this type of option-truth more often. Anyway, she seems to be very nice, generous, easy-going, etc. from what I see of the apartment and from what I understand Veronique to say.

In the meantime, here are some initial impressions of Aix-en-Provence. I sometimes don't remember to realize that a lot of people think that France is one big Paris, but the Aix conversation has me thinking twice (person: what's up? me: I'm going to Aix this summer! person: Where? What? X? me: Aix. Aix-en-Provence. It's in southern France. person: Oh, neato. Have fun in Paris! me: ...)

• Aix has a lot of candy shops. Also, boutiques, cafes, little restaurants, fountains, and squares. It seems a medium-sized city. Everyone I've asked says there aren't any dangerous areas, which is good. Obviously.
• A lot of the street signs are written in both French and Italian. We're not too far from the Italian border, so this makes sense, but it does make me wish I knew a bit more Italian and a bit less Spanish. I'm making people think I'm speaking in tongues with this French-Italian-English-Spanish-Nonsense mumbo-jumbo. Yeah I just said mumbo-jumbo.
• The history here runs deep. Just across the street from the apartment is a plaque saying that in the foyer of that apartment, the Gestapo gunned down several members of the Resistance, and I haven't seen much on WW1, but if 100 men from Collioure were killed in that war (as compared, according to the small monument in that seaside town, to 2 in Vietnam and 4 in WW2), imagine the effect it must have had on a town the size of Aix. In addition, there's much older history, from the convoluted medieval town's layout, to the Roman wall encircling parts of the town, to the cathedrals built on top of churches built on top of ancient roads.
  
• There's also some art, and various museums, where (I believe) Cezanne features prominently, and where several pretty portraits of 18th century nobles in addition to some studies by David can be found.
• The culture is a bit more laid back than elsewhere in France - people are a bit more relaxed (or at least, forgiving about my language errors, thank goodness), you have to work really hard to get the check and pay at a restaurant, there's less general language snobbery, less adroitness with English, more rat-looking dogs, more people kissing each other's cheeks, including men (yes, man-on-man cheek kissing action), lots of markets, etc...
• There are various subcultures, as indicated by restaurants, primarily: some Greek restaurants, some Armenian restaurants, some African restaurants, some Egyptian restaurants, some Italian restaurants (where they served me 40-proof alcohol...uhhhHH), and I hear there is a Jewish district, although I haven't seen any Jewish restaurants.
  
• There are a lot of beautiful young French men...and a lot of frightening old ones. What happens?
  
• Other misc. things: people leave restaurants to talk on cell phones (!); gas (diesel) is flipping expensive - even compared to the good old US of A, and everyone drives a small car, a bike, or walks; every kid and his mother (well not his mother, that's just a saying) owns a scooter; the French love Michael Jackson, Madonna, 80's music, and that one song by Justin Timberlake.

Well...this entry has gone on long enough. I'm off to try to learn some verb tenses and to figure out how much I should be tipping in restaurants.

Ma Grande Amie

Thus follows the story of Brianna and I in France.

One time, a smallish young lady named Emily and her mother were staying at a lovely beachside town in France, when they happened upon a Spanish traveler and her family who had just crossed the border and were intending to rest a while in said town, Collioure.

You know, this is going to be an awkward story, because a lot of the time when Bri and I get together, conversation just devolves into inside jokes and other nonsense. Thinking she’d be interested in some small Spanish-isms in France, I told her about the boys who I’d come across pointing at your average mallard duck and shouting loudly and excitedly, “Pato! Pato! Pato!” – which, as we all know, means “duck” in Spanish. After just two days, the code word was pato, and we would break into pato chants with very little provocation.

It must be irritating to be around us.

However, the parents bore it well, perhaps (in my mom’s case at least) thanks in part to the delicious hard cider close on hand. Other things we did to switch up the pato routine (OH by the way…does anyone know the saying/cliché that has something to do with a canard?)…yes, other things included: eating at the Copa Cabana (beachfront); swimming/wading/skipping stones/looking at fish/looking for octopi; successfully finding, ordering, and eating crepes, exploring and shopping various markets, watching the French army (no wisecracks, please) do their routine drilling stuff on the water, and general mangling of the French language. So…a lot of eating and lazing about, I think.

Also, we hiked to a castle up the mountain, where we encountered some other tourists. For my grandfather, who asked me to get foreign opinions of America and the French (and I am deliberately misunderstanding the intent behind his request – this comment is in no way political): we ran into an Irish woman with a walking stick who accused the French of being “bloody goats” but who loudly proclaimed, “I love America!”

Ahem.

To keep up the thread of half-hearted whining I seem to have going here, I feel it necessary to mention (in brief) the two misadventures had while in Collioure. 1) I got shat on by a bird…it was especially horrifying, and I do not recommend it. While I was freaking out, Mom asked a Frenchman if he had anything to “clean up the *violent gesturing* ummmm”…Frenchman: “merde!”, which he did, which Mom used to intensely rub said merde into my sweater/arm. Awesome. 2) Mrs. W. sampled the local delicacy – moules frites (mussels and fries…mmm?) – and wound up tasting them twice, the second time against her will. Blargh.

One last random anecdote about Bri before I move along. As I may have previously mentioned, this is FIFA season (!!!). Of course, France is playing, and that means impassioned French in the streets doing their FIFA thing. Also of course, both Bri and I brought our France jerseys – Thierry and Zidane, respectively – and we wore them on the first France game. I’m very proud to say that the shirts have been officially christened by the belle republique; two sets of old men greeted us with fervent “allez les bleus,” and we incited mob behavior in a group of French boys while walking along the streets.

Bonjour, France

Today I woke up to a lizard in my room. Well, technically I woke up to Mom nudging me and saying she was going to get some coffee, and that she’d be back in a bit. I lay around for a bit, looking at the ceiling and listening to the sea, but eventually got up and took a shower to wake up. Emerging from the bathroom – dripping wet with just a towel for protection – I began rustling through my suitcase for something to wear when Monsieur Lizard jumped out at me! Well, technically not at me. But eep!

Actually, he’s pretty cool and we got along fine after I chased him into a corner and took a photo of him for proof when Mom gets back. Although, if she gets back soon, she will just be able to go to the corner. I really should find a way to make him go outside.

Really, though, this place is practically packed with wildlife, from the lizards to the fishes to the ducks and gulls. Okay that’s not packed, that’s pretty normal. I’d be worried if there weren’t any fish or gulls next to the sea. This is, though, the place of octopussian fame where a younger, more innocent Bess stood frolicking in the waves, only to encounter an eight-limbed cephalopod peering out of the shallows. And we wondered why she wasn’t more envious of our trip back to the beach.

The most prevalent form of wildlife appears to be the tourists, at least with a cursory glance. However, we haven’t yet nailed down another American touron family…it’s probably a bit early in the year, and we’ve mainly seen French, a few Brits, and one chipper group of Australians. Mom and I walked the path around the old fort before Brianna and co. got here, and everyone seems intent on one goal here: relaxing. There’s ice cream to be eaten, beach chairs to be sat in, various colorful drinks to be drank (drunk?), etc.

Travels and Travails

First of all, let me just say that Airborne tablet things are grosss. Does anyone like those things? And has anyone ever actually not caught a cold because of those things? This does seem a good business plan – your product works when nothing happens. I think it’s a placebo…otherwise, why wouldn’t they come in pill form so you don’t have to violate a tall glass of water with this alarmingly large beige tablet, forming a hissing concoction that looks like radioactive urine and tastes like gritty Gatorade. Or vice versa.

Also, they’re the brainchild of an anonymous 2nd grade teacher.

Anyway. I’m writing this in the hotel room…I don’t know what day or time it is, but I think it might be Sunday. I’m concerned about the fate of the blog because I don’t have internet access and because my computer keeps shutting down despite the apparent full charge. This entry has a fifty-fifty chance of being disjointed and/or tedious. I’m sorry…it looks like I’ll just have to post what, when, and where I get the chance. This means dates probably won’t line up, so be forewarned.

Mom and I are headed to the south of France for a week to meet up with Bri and the Wilk. parents before I go off on my separate way to Aix-en-Provence. This means some compulsive order – and disorder – of tickets/passports/money/etc. in an extra-secret pocket and now which pocket was that? Also, it means walking fifteen feet behind a bustling woman with a red suitcase (Mom) who neither slows down nor speeds up…this is more annoying than I’ve just described it, trust me. And certainly, it means planes.

Because I can’t sleep on planes – I just fall into this horrible pseudo-nap coma state for several minutes before waking up feeling less rested, more frantic, and extremely sore in my neck – I chose to take the trans-Atlantic from Philly to Paris to practice my recognize-a-Frenchman skills. I’ve determined that ethnicity is definitely not the way to do it (obviously), nor is shoes (thanks, global whatsit), but that it’s something more intangible (je ne sais quoi) about the carriage (???). For instance, the cute indeterminate Asian kids sitting across from me were American, as given away by their bounciness (and, okay, the way they shouted “look, PARIS!” as we pulled into the dingy gate at CDG airport). The clothes-hanger sitting several rows down, despite stick-thin appearance and chic wardrobe, was also American – she made lots of eye contact and lacked any invisible boundary wall. The aged rocker Mr. Andrews look-alike (plus a foot of hair) was French, albeit a groovy, LSD-induced French, as indicated by a certain positioning of the mouth (in addition to a red passport). Hopefully I get better at this skill by the end of the summer…as of now, I’m not even sure if my theory is true, or if it has some regional qualifiers.

In any case, the French flight attendants are certainly cooler – it’s the only word I can think of – than their American counterparts. The men get to wear black trench coats and slick back their hair like the singers in some Europop band, and the women all have jackets with Nehru collars, bright lipstick or jazzy pillbox hats, and neck scarves tied around the necks in typical French fashion. Their shoes are not comfortable or practical.

French flights are also seemingly doing better than their American counterparts when it comes to cutting costs…I don’t know why, because it seems French are paying equally as much, if not more, for gasoline. The seats seemed roomier, the blankets fluffier, and they actually gave us drinks and crackers free of charge. I’m not sure if the French are doing this or not, but US Airlines is also: charging a bag fee for large or extra bags, advertising shamelessly on napkins, barf bags, and the backs of tray tables, discontinuing air conditioning during the park and taxi stages of flying, and somehowww always always always making me sit on the wing, just next to the giant turbo-charge jet. Maybe that last one isn’t a money-saving scheme. But what the heck, US Airlines? How is that even possible?

Also, the guys in the security part of the airport smashed this cookie I was saving in lieu of dinner (rumored to be veggie ragout) into a zillion pieces. For the first time in basically twenty years, I forgot to take the mini Swiss army pocket knife off of my keychain and got caught. But, before unearthing the giant shining blade from where I had hidden it in the false bottom of my carry-on, they had to crush the shortbread into dust. Yeah take that. And I did.

However…all that aside, I’m now in France. You can tell that you’re about to land in France when you’re on a plane because of those lines of tall, thin, dark evergreen trees that are definitely pictured in art of the French countryside by Van Gogh, etc. – are they cypress? I’ll call them cypress. Also, I think I may have seen gorse (but I’m not sure)…by the sides of the road are these large bushes that have waving yellow flowers all over them, which both my mother and I independently imagined to be gorse.

In addition to local flora we saw on the drive from Toulouse to Collioure – a small village not far from the Spanish border – there were also some larger monuments to be had. Mountains, for one, which Mom argued were the foothills of the Pyrenees, and some small watchtowers at the peaks of said mountains, and some ruined castles and fortresses, and some not so ruined castles and fortresses. I was kind of incoherent/insensible through most of this drive, but I did manage to snap a picture of Carcassonne from a lookout we stopped at briefly just after lunch.

Upon arrival at the hotel (our windows overlook the town and are a stone’s throw from the sea), I tried organizing and sorting my belongings into our clean, if spartan, room. It seems some oil pastel crayons that I ingeniously packed between some stacks of books came un-packed and colored up the aforementioned stacks like a deranged two-year-old. Fortunately, no items of clothing were hit, and, though I fell in the shower and gave my shin a good-sized lump trying to get the stains out of my suitcase, all is under control. At least none of our bags were lost. All of which is to say, if a huge purple bruise shows up in future photographs of me, that’s why.

Things to look forward to in future entries (and remind me if I’m not writing at all about them): strange foods, the Tour de France, French hommes, gurning, the Eurocup FIFA thing, some kind of music festival, and anything else you can think of.

A bientot…

So, I'm no Margaret Mead...

which is probably a good thing. Less pressure.

Hmm...thus far, this blog (oooh Emily has a weblog...get nervous) has been a bucket of pretentious. I'm going to try to justify the title (Recreational Anthropology) by saying that what I'm aiming to write is an account of any participant-observation - oh, there I go again - for fun. Hopefully this frame will remind me to be less egocentric and more focused on the people and places around me. Good idea, yeah?

I'm still in Pittsburgh right now - my sister Bess' graduation from QVHS is tonight, in fact - and so is the 6th game in the Stanley Cup Final (Go Pens!) - but I'll presently be heading to France for almost two months. For all you wide-eyed kids out there, study abroad! It's totally worth taking a couple of classes over the summer or saving your gen-eds for later or whatever else you have to do. But maybe I'm a bit premature in my preaching...we'll see how life-changed I am in six weeks.