S’Asseoir Et Regarder Le Ciel

The French word for remembering is reflexive and idiomatic, which means that the verb by itself (rappeler, to call back), when paired with a reflexive pronoun, gains additional meaning (se rappeler, to remember). Grammar lessons aside, I think that the dimensionality of this word is particularly fitting. At least, when I remember something, there’s an aspect of calling back to prior selves, of dredging up old emotions, of interacting with (and, most likely, editing) past experience. As any intro-level psych student knows, memory isn’t a video camera...it's much more personal than that.

Thus far, I’ve tried to shield you (dear readers) from the brunt of my introspective ruminations, but as this will probably be the last entry for a bit – unless something incredible happens between now and October – I figure some good old ruminating is expected, if not anticipated.

So.

As I look back and try to crystallize some meaning from the day-to-day life of an American student in Aix-en-Provence, I can reduce down everything I’ve learned into one French phrase, which is conveniently located on a bracelet I purchased back in the first week of my stay. The sentence, also found in Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince, can be translated to mean, “sit down and look at the sky.” And I find that this is something I’ve done quite a bit in Aix. My experience here was not the hectic tour du monde (or the equally hectic tour du bar) that most people aim for when going on summer exchange. I don’t have bags of souvenirs, tens of ticket stubs, or stacks of postcards...really, all I've got of lasting import is this bracelet and the book from which it derives.

I’m not going to preach; for a lot of people, most people even, being able to see as many cultures as possible in a six-week span is the spark that ignites a change in opinion or outlook that will last a lifetime. But as for me, I found real value in not traveling, not moving, and instead just staring at the sky. I, who can hardly ever be still without worrying about what to accomplish next, managed to find time to sit at cafés and flip through the pages of a French children’s book. You’ll never believe it, but in the nights before finals I was eating dinner at a nice restaurant, going to the opera, stopping by a shisha bar, and watching episodes of The Saint in French.

So maybe I don’t look any different…sure, my hair is slightly shaggier, and if you look closely you can see a vague ring tan around the third finger of my right hand, and okay, my mouth has a bit of added tension from silently rehearsing all the French I want to say, but a week at the beach will erase all of that. I don’t know how fleeting my newfound ability to let things lie will be; hopefully it won’t be eradicated as quickly.

Another thing – a more obvious thing – that I’m hoping I won’t lose too rapidly is my grasp of a second language. They aren’t joking when they say the best way to learn another language is to live in it. Six weeks isn't a lot, and I don’t know if I’ve been regularly thinking in French – but then, I don’t really think too often in English sentences unless I’m consciously planning what to say. And I haven’t remembered dreaming in French, but I don't think I've dreamt in English either. I do know that I finally figured out how to pronounce the French word for garlic and that I’m able to conjugate verbs without too much hesitation, which is much more than I started out with. I’ve found out enough about language and culture so that my chances of talking to someone on the flight from Paris to Philadelphia are doubled. I don't have to sit back and imagine what these strangers’ lives are like because I'm actually able to ask. Although…I don’t know if I’ve changed that much.

Memory. Like I mentioned, it's slippery stuff. I know it’s kind of rotten for me to throw this in at the end, but I hope you’ve taken the things I’ve written with a grain of salt. I won't go so far as to tell you not to believe everything you’ve read, but, whatever you’re reading this for, keep in mind that it’s not an account of absolute fact – all I’ve recorded are my perceptions and reflections of events that I thought might make a good story. Whether or not it's better than the "real thing" is impossible to say...I hope you enjoyed nonetheless.

I’ll see you in (as we who are French say) Perfidious Albion.

Il y a des Trucs

So. After just six weeks, I’ve managed to remember to say “four-twenty” instead of eighty, I’ve just about mastered the French pout, and I’ve become acquainted with the winding alleys of Aix-en-Provence.

But as I start to think about gathering my belongings from the corners of Isabelle’s apartment and tossing them haphazardly into a pile on my suitcase, I’m realizing that six weeks quite simply isn’t enough. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic about going to the beach to hang out with Uncle Delvinho for a week (oh, and I guess I’m pretty happy about seeing friends and family again), but I feel like I haven’t accomplished it all. I don’t even know what “it all” is, and I don’t know if six months – or six years – would be enough time to do it. It just feels like I haven’t done so much…I never got to title a blog entry “merde,” for one. Although on second thought, this is probably a good thing. I never watched a live soccer match or the Tour de France (which is pretty much like watching the highway on steroids, so I’m not that upset). And I just realized with horror that I never really went to a boîte.

I didn’t even travel extensively, and I can’t tell if this was a good idea or not. Is it better to know one place really well, to go native, or to try and discover as many places as possible? My method was less expensive, and probably less dangerous – I hate the injustice of being a lone traveling woman (I also hate calling myself a woman.) – but I’m just not convinced…

Staying in Aix and not acting the American tourist gave me a lot of time for experiencing the little things, things I haven’t managed to squeeze into these entries. I never wrote about spending the day under the eaves of an old and dusty library, flipping through books from the 60s on philosophy and politics, or about foiling Malicious in her cat-food-or-your-shins ultimatum with (appropriately) a ball of tin foil torn from a chocolate bar. There were several afternoons spent culling the seeds from near-perfect tomatoes and drying them on the windowsill (in preparation for smuggling back to the States) while the smell of freshly hung laundry filtered down through my open window. I never counted the number of times I was mistaken for a Brit – or the number of times I didn’t correct that assumption. I haven’t talked about the losing battle with my white shoes, or about the dubious pleasures of spending the evening in an Irish pub with some Scottish jocks. I never followed up on my toilet journalism with a confession of the gradual and grudging respect I’ve gained for the whole detached showerhead ploy…I still regret the lack of any place to secure the thing while shampooing, but I appreciate the ability to powerwash teeth to toes from inches away. And I haven’t really updated on my home life: about Isabelle’s Provencal cooking, Veronique’s departure for the city, or about watching “absolument nul” films with Romain.

I’ve picked up on some various cultural scraps that I haven’t been able to fit anywhere either, but which I’ll include here to shed some more light on how I spend my days (for that, and for this obsessive need I have to organize, arrange, and pigeonhole). It goes without saying that everyone in France is going to die of lung cancer, just like everyone in America is going to die either from stress or overeating or both, but it does go deeper than that. (Slightly.) For one, the French apparently never ever name pets after people. (“Not even famous people?” I asked. “Like, no one would name their goldfish Sarkozy, or their pet turtle Ziggy Stardust?” “Well…maybe Ziggy…”) I discovered true French national pastimes – no, not romance, or cooking, or even pétanque – it’s ironing and conserving/consuming leftovers. I also learned a little about the French schooling system (firsthand – I got a frownie face on the board one day next to my name for an incorrectly placed pronoun). I’ve figured out some onomatopoeic phrases, like “miam miam” for when something tastes good. I’ve just started to get a handle on colloquial Argot or Verlan – most likely just in time for it to all change as soon as I’ve left. I’ve got some fantastic ideas for real linguistic research papers, like one on the difference between racism in France and America (the French apparently don’t have many racial slurs, just inappropriate contexts?), or something concerning the effect of the masculine/feminine binary system on the perception of gender and sexuality, or a history of how certain grammatical, lexical, and semantic structures vary so widely from French to English in some areas, yet are identical in others. …Ugh, I’m so nerdy.

Okay…so what’s left? I know, I still have to take a photo of Isabelle...don’t worry, there’s a large picnic on Wednesday where I can do that. Oh, I guess I have finals still. I’ve got a concert to go to tonight – I got free tickets for Karita Mattila. I have no idea what to expect. I’m planning on eating a last supper (or okay penultimate supper) with Romain at my favorite restaurant…and then it’ll be time to get on a plane and return to my real life. Merde.

I think I’ve got maybe one more post in me before then.

The Emily Testament

On Thursday around 9pm it sunk in…the upcoming weekend would be my last in France nooo! The knowledge rapidly transitioned into that frantic oh-my-gosh-I-haven’t-done-anything mode that we all know and love. I wrote out a long list of everything I wanted and needed to get done before Saturday the 26th, then narrowed it until there were two things on the schedule for the weekend: to go to Arles and to go to church.

The first one makes sense, right? A French town, not too far away, full of museums and Roman ruins and Romanesque buildings and food and art and shopping and so on. The second might be a little further afield for all you (atheists!) out there…but hear me out. And I’ll cut you off right there and say that no, I don’t feel the urgent need to go to confession because of all the sinning I’ve been doing in France. I’m not Catholic.

What? Oh, yes. All my life, my parents have dragged my sister and me across Europe from cathedral to cloister, but I don’t actually remember a service not in English. I’ve gotten a glimpse of non-American Christianity as a child in East Anglia and during Christmases in at Westminster London, but I’ve never been to any kind of religious ceremony that’s truly foreign. Unless you count that time we accidentally landed in the middle of a Patron Saint Day parade in Positano and I got checked out by a nun.

Unfortunately, I missed the Saturday bus to Arles, and so had to give up on the witnessing of all that somber French and Latin and echoing ancient ritual. Early Sunday morning, I woke up, got dressed, and headed to the bus station while the heavens grumbled above.

I had been told on Saturday that I could buy my bus pass directly on the bus, so I didn’t bother to stop at the darkened ticket counter, instead squeezing my way under the small shelter to get out of the rain. I hate waiting. After about five minutes of wondering whether those Saturday instructions had been correct, I summoned up the courage to ask an elderly British couple if they had ever ridden the bus before. They were friendly but clueless, so I girded my loins and knocked on a nearby bus door. The driver looked at me suspiciously, but let me in, and I mumbled out something about buses and students and tickets and discounts, at which point he pointed me back up the hill to the ticket counter. Merci, I said. Merde! I thought. That’s one thing that I’ve gotten down in the six weeks I’ve had in France.

Jogging back up the hill, I discovered that, in fact, I can’t get a student pass on the bus. I also can’t get one at the ticket counter…it’s Sunday. Merde! I sprint back down the hill and dish out ten Euros for a one-way ticket to Arles. Time for a rant.

I understand the purpose of given students a discount, and I understand the logic behind cutting the price for tickets in bulk. But why, oh France, does it cost just five Euros to buy a student pass card (and just one euro for each ensuing bus ride for the possessor of said card) when it costs ten Euros forty for a one-way trip to Arles? Could you try to reconcile these prices by bringing down the “normal” tickets? Don’t you want thoughtless tourists to hesitate before buying the bargain basement deal? Can we allow a student to present identification and purchase a single, student-priced ticket? Or, can we open the flipping ticket counter on Sundays?

I was hot and sticky and in a bad mood when I got on the bus, and I had the lurking feeling that I should have just found an Aixoise cathedral instead. However, the rain started to clear and I was hoping for sunnier skies. First though, to complete this travel experience, is an evil bus from hell, filled with children who kick the backs of seats and scream, body odor and mysterious stains on toxicolored seats, greasy streaked windows, and a woman who looked and acted like a bad female Ricky Gervais who coughed frequently and wetly onto the back of my head.

In Arles, I leapt off the bus and headed straight for the tourist office to continue on my general mission to confuse tourist office employees as possible. I managed to find out that there was some sort of big event occurring at all the museums, and also that there were no free museums on Sunday. I don’t really understand this – is it because the free ones close on Sunday, or do they just increase their prices? – because I was thoroughly distracted from what the woman behind the counter was saying by a bespectacled boy playing ferociously with a Dragon Ball Z action figure. Some things are universal, namely the explosion noises boys aged 6-12 make.

I wasn’t so very upset about the museums, because I secretly don’t like Van Gogh very much. Although, good work with the whole ear thing. Present me with an ear in a box (you’ll have to get in line, JT) and just see what happens. Anyways, I was hungry; I searched the Sunday streets for an open restaurant, ditching one precipitously as the water was brought because they didn’t accept credit cards, and ending up at another under the shadow of a large Roman ruin.

After a salad, some bread, an entire carafe of water, and a bottle of Breton cider (slogan: strength and character), I was feeling infinitely better. The ruin I’d been sitting under turned out to be an arena of not-quite Colosseum proportions, but not half bad, considering how far we are from Rome. This arena appeared to still be in use: there were bullfighting posters ringing the walls. I looked for some posters advertizing taureau piscine, but didn’t see any. Taureau piscine, for those who don’t know, is the hilarious variant of bullfighting where random children attempt to force a bull into a swimming pool. Or so I’ve heard.

After the ruins, I realized I…really…had to find a toilette. I am a small person who had just imbibed the contents of a large carafe. Fortunately (I guess), I found the most hideous bathroom this side of Italy. After miraculously managing to perform all operations successfully while not touching any surfaces, I got stuck inside. Okay, the lock wouldn’t turn for maybe half a minute, but it seemed like several hours that I was trapped behind the large, thick, slimy steel door. After the trauma, I made my way across the square and into Church of St. Trophime. God had been calling long enough. I walked through a christening party and into a Romanesque forest of columns ringed with white flowers. It was nearing the heat of the day, so after I strolled around the perimeter of the nave, I sat for a while in a cool alcove and read some trivial fiction. And was finally at peace.

The rest of the afternoon I spent walking around the city, looking at architecture and searching for a bank machine so I could get another ten Euros for the trip back to Aix. (I was welcomed by the happy dancing ATM machine graphic and pocketed (okay, walleted) two crisp…for the sake of the story…ten euro notes.) I made my way to a park that looked eerily familiar; I think I must have run amok there as a kid. I sat by a pool of still water in which was immersed what appeared to be a horrible statue of a dying woman and dead kids, and finished my book, just in time for a bird to poo on it. Gross. And yet, fortunate, as the book was shielding my lap.

Parting with the second ten Euros for the return to Aix was slightly easier than the first ten, perhaps because I had been steeling myself for it, and perhaps because I was pretty well ready to get back to the flat and take a shower. Although, the first thing I did upon re-entry was to compose a quick note to the Man Upstairs.

Traipsing up to the Bastille

When I emailed a friend back home to say that I would be celebrating Bastille Day on Monday, the response was, “going to watch some beheadings?” Indeed, this was the trend of humorous comebacks at the mention of France’s Fête Nationale. It's also the kind of remark that really (pardon my pun) cuts to the heart of the issue. As Americans, French independence conjures up images of heads on pikes, a rowdy rabble crowned with red caps, and of course Madame la Guillotine. And maybe, if you’re well-read, crazy knitting ladies.

Which, I suppose, is all true…of Paris, in 1789 (with the possible exception of the knitting). Nowadays, it seems to me that the Quatorze Juillet isn’t much different from our Fourth of July. And true, the signing of the Declaration of Independence is slightly less bloody than a riot of prisoners, but – and please forgive my heresy – the eight-year war following that signing could easily be argued as more brutal than the nine-month Reign of Terror. I guess civil wars are messy, no matter how you (ugh) slice it.

Anyway, I woke up late in the morning to the sound of sporadic snapping and cracking in the street that would continue through the day. I didn’t manage to figure out whether French firecrackers have legal status in the States, but I didn’t see – or hear – anything substantially bigger than the Hail To The Nation! I purchased a year ten days ago. Isabelle had left me a note saying she was obligated to go to her mother’s for the day, so I sat down with Veronique, Romain (at least, I hope that’s his name), and a jar of Nutella to watch the parade in Paris. My primary thought during this event was that the French flag seems a lot classier than the American one.

The living room slowly emptied, and I spent the rest of the morning reading and idly thinking about whether it would be worth it to try and get my hands on some bottle rockets…around noon, Veronique poked her head around the corner and asked me if I wanted to go to a restaurant with Romain, as she had been planning on going, but then other plans had come up. I agreed, he came back around the apartment to put away his lime-green longboard, and we left. Before you start getting any ideas (Alyssa. Mom. Bess.), he did end up paying for my lunch, but just because all I’d ordered was a glass of wine and a Perrier. He’s a linguist and had some interesting things to say about education systems and socialism in Europe which I won’t summarize here.

It’s unusual for me to have articles I’ve read in school be quoted back nearly word for word during the course of normal conversation, but Romain’s views on France and French patriotism lined up neatly with a piece I read for 201 (although, to be fair, that article was making a point about the contrariness of the French, so nearly any view would). Apparently a good number of the French – including my flatmate – scoff at Bastille Day because it’s all reminiscence. He spoke about the parades and the soldiers standing at attention and all the pomp and pretension, and yet how France’s military and economic domination is really a thing of the past. An interesting viewpoint, I thought, but said that really, all such holidays are for remembering the past. Then I recalled that I don’t like the July 4th so well: all the rushing around and scrambling for a good place to…stand and peer at the sky for ten minutes…and then more crowd fighting. Also, it’s really hard to debate in French.

After lunch, I spent some time walking around Aix. I was surprised to see that most of the businesses were open, as if it were a normal Monday. I suppose this was startling because on your average Sunday, holidays aside, it’s difficult to find even a café or patisserie that’s open for early breakfast (as I keep forgetting). I stopped by a liquor store and shopped for some souvenirs for people back home.

By dinnertime, festivities were just starting to pick up. I heated up some cold chicken Isabelle had set by for me and ate some chocolate icecream while watching a group of men playing guitars and dancing in the courtyard below the large windows of the apartment. Just before ten, as the sun started to set, I headed out into a decidedly carnival atmosphere.

As anticipated, the streets were blocked off, full of pressing crowds of adults and children grabbing each others hands and kissing exuberantly. The streets were again filled with music: a group of African drummers, the ubiquitous oom pah pah patriot band, and several people armed with instruments who seemed to be trying to make as much random dissonant noise as possible. I pushed my way to the central square, which afforded a good view of the sky, and which was roped off and swarming. After hanging back for thirty seconds bracing myself, I turned around and headed for plan B: the rooftops. There’s a good roof with a view of the city I’d heard about, and I made my way towards the opposite end of town. Of course, this location was crowded, too. I hung back from the edge, reluctant to shove to the front of the wall and stake out a spot, until I nearly lost the place I had been surreptitiously hanging about. I was trying not to get too impatient and antsy when, at last, the fireworks started.

French fireworks – at least the ones in Aix – are not as varied as the ones shot off at Three Rivers in Pittsburgh. They don’t make your heart rattle in your chest when they explode, and they don’t leave afterimages on your retinas. The sounds they make are more like dogs barking than cannons going off. They do, however, create a whole lot of smoke that gets caught up in the not-quite-Mistral winds, and they’re launched, with true European flare, from the center of the roped-off square I’d passed on my way to the roofs. Coming to class on Tuesday, I found that a classmate of mine had a medium-sized gash on her forehead from one of several pieces of burning shrapnel that had rained down on the onlookers. So perhaps not so far away from beheading after all.

Although…I don’t think it would have necessarily been a good idea to flee the country (contrary to 1789); another classmate from 201 was conspicuously absent today, the reason for her absence being that she got violently ill while in Venice. Apparently it was food poisoning that lead to the intensive care unit…I’m a bit surprised no canals were involved…nonetheless. Overall, a fairly tranquil family holiday. Maybe if I had been in Paris, there would have been more violence, as my American friend had warned in that email. Still, standing away from the peril and crowded in on all sides by the gasping and pointing French, I enjoyed the commemoration of long-ago bloody idealism as well as any Aixoise.

Lyon: The Tale of the Belle and the Bête

So, as alluded to in prior entries, I headed off to Lyon (rawr!) for the weekend, embracing tourism with open arms – in two and a half days, I saw (at least) three ancient structures, two churches, three museums, a large and varied collection of squares, streets, and traboules, and I also did some shopping. And a bit of evening exploring. And a lot of walking. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

My primary conclusion (and one which, I hope, will turn this entry into less of a journalistic record) is that everywhere I went on this somewhat uncharacteristic tour de force of mine, I saw amazing things and I made a bit of idiot of myself. I am not the belle in this story; I am the bête, the fool. Or at least, the ridiculous American.

Okay. Let’s take a break from the Aix files (you know I had to do it).

Traveling is something I am passably good at, surprisingly enough. Maybe I’m just accustomed, but I didn’t lose any bags, get mugged or irretrievably lost, and I even managed to get on the right trains with my tickets already stamped. I made all my connections on the metro and I tended to know which way was North. On Friday, I left the house before the sun had risen, and was kindly taken to the train station by Isabelle (and Sarkozy’s wife, singing melodiously through the speakers. Who knew?). I climbed into a train full of grizzled men and watched Van Gogh landscapes whizz by while listening to Antics. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine to listen to Interpol while traveling at high speeds…perhaps because I became familiar with those first albums while clinging to faded bus seats and flying around cliff roads on the Amalfi Coast. But I digress.

Upon exiting the train station, my genius for travel rapidly declined. I brilliantly decided to walk without map or directions to the hotel and required the assistance of an entire bakery to get straightened out. I wandered into an odd area of town (full of construction gangs) and got offered a beer at 8 in the morning. I declined. Laden with luggage, I crossed the two green rivers several times in a panic while looking for my hotel, which I thought to be located on Rue Seze, but which was in reality located on Victor Hugo. It is very unnerving to walk up and down cobbled roads for a half hour, thinking a building has been demolished (although in my defense, there was a large pile of rubble on Rue Seze). Or there was the time I hiked up 267 stairs – not including ramps – to see an area quoted by a guide book to be “crammed with boutiques, restaurants, and cafés!” only to find a lot of graffiti, skateboarding emo kids, and an admittedly incredible view.

My favorite travel minute, though, was when I tried to get a metro ticket from one of the automatic vending machines with nothing smaller than a ten-euro note and had to be rescued by a very Keanu Reeves type character. Circa Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. And French.

In typical nerdy fashion, my favorite part about Lyon was the museums. This may have been because I waited to do most of my shopping until Sunday, when the stores are all closed. There’s nothing so tempting as an unattainable shop front…still, the imaginary window shopping (in French, lèche-vitrine, or plate-glass licking) at the Musée des Beaux Artes, the Maison des Canuts, and the Musée des Tissues was good enough. There was a particularly spectacular exhibit of all sorts of fabrics and patterns and colors (the velvet! the velour! the bombazine, lamé, brocade, damask, and satin!) at that last one. I got an extra-long time to look at the fabrics because a massive hailstorm struck while I was on floor two. I aided the museum staff by running around pointing at the leaky window-casings, and shouting in mangled French, “you’ve got water!” or, “icecream! balls of icecream! in the sky!”

Speaking of icecream, Lyon is a city that boasts of its food…the restaurants I tried were pas mal. I do feel I could have done better a second time around. The first night, I struck out on my own into a “hip neighborhood” to find a traditional bouchon where I didn’t bat an eye at the hot saussis and saucisson, or even a dish that on the menu appeared to be some kind of chicken, but turned out to be a bready roll tasting like omelette with the consistency of pizza that bubbled threateningly in a scalding dish…but was very thrown off by the “pommes vapeur” (apples? vaporized apples?) that turned out to be steamed potatoes.

The next morning, I negotiated the patisserie (after being warned to the point of paranoia by Carla and co. that the French Are Out to Get Your Money So Count Your Change) semi-successfully, and was robbed blind at a café – where do they get this? 6-dollar coffee? – while listening to a man play never-ending ambient music. I failed epically (epicureanly?) my last night, though. After being directed to a popular restaurant spot by the concierge, I walked up and down the street looking at menus for a half an hour before confusedly settling on the fishy one at the end. Probably because of tired feet and inclement weather, possibly because of the friendly waiter, I justified the decision by saying that mom likes fish and they served cider and the prices were reasonable. Unfortunately, I think I ended up at the French equivalent of Red Lobster. There were nets on the walls. I sat next to a group of noisy children (accompanied, I assume, by adults, although evidence indicated otherwise) and a guy who looked startlingly like my ex-boyfriend, except that he was Asian, and that he had a face perpetually in expression. For the first half of dinner, I thought he was laughing at me, and for the second half, after he brought out some organic chemistry to work on, I thought he was going to cry. And I had to help him understand that marmalade didn’t just come in orange. An unsettling meal, not entirely because of the suspect tuna steak.

Even though this weekend was the most touristy I’ve been thus far, I didn’t just associate with other tourists. I hung out with some birds and small children, for instance, in a pretty little park. More to the point, I had a long conversation with a museum staff member about Degas, and a short conversation with a cathedral security guard (named Mike) about the lovely twilight views. And in spite of, or maybe even because of, my silly little mistakes, I had a very good time.

I feel like I should sum up more than that, but I can’t really think of anything else to say…in the immortal words of David Byrne…”I have something to say about the difference between American and European cities, but I forgot what it was. I have it written down at home somewhere.”

Except I don’t.

Travel Angst

It’s rather odd that I’ve got an entry on the difficulties of vacation in the middle of…my vacation…but the truth is, up to now any traveling I’ve done has been nicely planned and packaged for me by someone else. In all my years of living abroad even, visiting overseas, and just generally celebrating Guy Fawkes Day (oh wait, what?), I have never fully realized how much of a heart attack planning to have fun can be.

It started with the vague notion upon arrival in France that I should go to Paris…but no, not Paris; I’ve already been there, really (oh, dear)…so maybe someplace new. I’ve never been to Spain, but Italy is closer, and I’ve got this suspicion in the back of my mind that I really do like Italy the best of any place I’ve traveled on the Med – no matter what their calcio teams do to me – but then again, I should try to stick to speaking French. Oh, but Prague…no, Prague is too far away. Be reasonable. And London’s right out; no need confusing the issue with Channels and English and I’ll be there in a few months anyways. So where, then? I thought Geneva, but that’s not really French enough, and then I thought Strasbourg, a nice city in France, but that’s a really German-sounding name, and the architecture is positively Prussian. After a lot of hesitation (as per usual), I concluded that what I really wanted was Corsica. To own it. No, sorry: it would be fantastic to visit to France’s secret in the middle of the sea, Napoleon’s birthplace, full of beaches and mountains and unspoiled towns, and surrounded by azure water.

But…getting there’s the problem. It always is, I suppose. In this case, it’s an overnight ferry to Corsica, and before that a bus or a train, or a plane in place of the ferry, which would mean more money but less travel time. I decided I needed a travel agent.

To illustrate how clueless I am, I was hesitant to go to a travel agent because I thought you had to pay them. How else will they make their money? I don’t really know, but it’s not from tourons like me. What I should have been worried about, though, was the fact that French travel agents speak French. This is the only reason that delaying my travel plans until the last possible minute could possibly be construed as a good thing…my French skills are now developed enough so that I only had one “not-a-clue” moment: the agent said she couldn’t get me a bed on the overnight ferry because they only had “foot-toils” left. I eventually figured out that she was using the euphemism for those musty polyester chairs found most often on airplanes. I told her I’d have to think it over. I made a hasty call to the States to get some advice from a more seasoned traveler. Hi, Mom!

After much moping, hyperventilating, and dithering, I came to the sad conclusion that Corsica was too expensive and too confusing for a trip of only three days. However, potential husbands listen up: I’ve found a nice 5-star hotel by the beach and I think if we rent a nice Audi for getting around the island unhampered by public transportation, I might be convinced to stay home and watch the kids every once in a while.

Boo. So, before succumbing entirely to spoiled brattiness, I discovered the city of Lyon. Actually, it’s kind of hard to miss: it’s two hours from Aix by TGV, Isabelle used to live there, and Wikipedia claims that it’s the 3rd largest city in France. Also, it’s got a fierce name. Also, I’ve never been there…a winning combination. Also, better food than Paris (maybe), better history (not sure about this), and better shopping (okay, no). Late Monday night, I emailed a hotel (in French…did anyone else know Gmail has foreign language spell-checker? I love Gmail…) and begged for a room for the weekend, for Bastille Day weekend. Major holidays and masses of French revelers wanting to stick people’s heads on pikes doesn’t stop me.

I have yet to uncover the correct combination of trains, planes, buses, and boats necessary for hyperbolically getting to La Résidence, and am already thinking cheaply ahead to how I’ll manage to get to the hotel, find the perfect places to eat, see a bunch of ruins and museums, and so on…mother and father, you know you’ve given me this disease.

But I’ll traverse those bridges when I come to them. And heaven knows, I can handle bridges…hailing from a city with more bridges than Venice. No, don’t encourage me. I said I wasn’t going to Italy…

Weekend in the Country

So while the rest of you hooligans were partying it up stateside this Fourth of July, I was passing a relaxing weekend with some family friends about an hour outside of Aix. Carla and Trey have known my parents since the Air Force days, when we all lived in East Anglia and Bess used to torture their son Will, who was at that time an infant. Nowadays, everyone’s all grown up, except for their 5-year-old daughter Cate, who is so precocious and clever that she might as well be. Will is almost seventeen, is practically an Olympic-level swimmer, plays the guitar, etc., while Alex is just a bit younger, speaks French like a native, and makes friends with the locals wherever he goes. I was invited for the weekend to stay at the incredible farmhouse outside of Pelissanne (complete with pool and ancient Roman ruin) their family lives in during the summers when Trey isn’t busy teaching young Air Force pilots to fly.

Carla met me on Thursday with Cate and a young French woman I met five years ago called Audrey. Back then, both of us were too shy and too inept at each other’s language to get along as friends, but I think this time we fared slightly better. At least, we managed to communicate enough to discover that we are both 20 and both going to school for biology (I think…she also wants to do something with her culinary skills. Biology may be rather different in France.). When I first got to the house in the country, I wasn’t sure – I never really am – if I should integrate myself into the “French kids plus Will and Alex” group or the “French adults plus Carla, Trey, and sometimes Cate” group, but I followed Audrey’s lead and ended up in an intense game of hide-and-seek tag.

Games…especially games involving running around at high speed in a strange and pitch-black environment, especially when the pitch-black environment involves things like large boulders, stone walls, deep pools, and ancient Roman ruins, especially if there’s a 5-year-old girl following you around, and especially if neither you nor the five-year-old speaks the language of the other players…are difficult. Needless to say, I got tagged several times. I am nothing if not brilliant, though, and finally found a good place for Cate and I to hide (against one of the previously mentioned stone walls, only this one was backlit so that you couldn’t see us unless you were literally standing on top of us), when the sprinklers went off. We trudged back to base in our dripping shoes and declared the game over, which was convenient, as the adult party was also breaking up and the clock was just striking 1am.

The next morning, after counting mosquito bites (fifteen), figuring out the espresso machine with Carla, and eating a chocolate croissant, I did…nothing. The remainder of the weekend was really all about eating, drinking, and lounging about. I drifted from the French kid group to the French adult group, gravitating toward the latter mainly because it’s easier to act awkward and detached around adults who are speaking French. They don’t tend to pop up, run around, or direct phrases at you that seem to require some kind of answer. I gave up on saying (in French), “sorry…could you repeat that more slowly?” and ended up making noncommittal noises, smiling, and half-shrugging, which didn’t seem to be the correct answer most of the time. So, I spent most of my day listening intently and responding cautiously to Audrey’s mother Suzan and some of Carla’s other friends.

I did pick up a lot of what was being said eventually, especially with Suzan being a fantastic translator of Argo slang for me. I learned a couple new words and phrases, like “dégueulasse,” “vachement,” and some others, which I have now forgotten. One of the more useful ones meant “to whine.” Oh well.

Cate was my most constant companion; we did a lot of swimming and put together several puzzles, including an awesome dinosaur puzzle. We also took a couple walks, and in Aix, we did some serious shopping. I didn’t get anything (expensive!!!), but at the market, Cate managed to collect a bracelet and a teddy bear, among other things.

The last day, Carla and Trey very nicely treated me to the most famous restaurant in Aix – Les Deux Garçons, or the 2G to those in the know. We can now add my name to the list of celebrities who have graced this street side café: Cézanne, Churchill, Piaf, Picasso, Ruzich, and Sartre. I can personally recommend the profiteroles (and the traditionally-garbed waiters and bustling street scene were equally satisfying to my taste for la belle vie). As of yet, I haven’t started any of my schoolwork…which is too bad, as I’ve got a 20-minute presentation on the French Resistance – yes, in French; yes, that’ll have to include the past tense – but then again, schoolwork isn’t really what I’m all about here. And I’ll definitely look back on learning not-quite-kosher words from French friends more fondly than I’ll ever recall even the best of grammar exercises.

New Flatmate

Yes, it’s true…I’ve got a new flatmate. Before I could get a photo of her, Morgan moved back home to Toulouse to stay at her mother's, and her boyfriend has moved into Morgan’s old room. I don’t know what his name is. I’d been introduced to him a few weeks ago, when he was just “le copain de Morgain” and names weren’t necessary, and now it’s too late to ask for an introduction. I’ll have to snoop around and wait for someone to drop it in conversation.

Anyway, as flatmates go, he’s nice enough, I guess…as he was carting his stuff into the room, he asked if it was a problem for a guy to be living with us. A little late for that, I suppose, but nice effort. Anyway, we’re on amiable enough terms – I helped him proofread an English job application last week, so I guess that makes us friends.

Over Isabelle’s ratatouille dinner, he asked me if my room was very hot, and when I said it wasn’t too bad, he looked skeptical until I qualified that okay, it was hot, but at least not humid like back home. He asked where I was from, and when I answered Pennsylvania, and he asked if that was in the same latitude as Florida. …No. I said a little south of New York, and thought about getting into a discussion about how France is actually further North than parts of Pennsylvania, but decided against it. He asked me how far Pittsburgh was from New York, and when I said that I wasn’t sure, that I never go there, he seemed pretty upset. I had to explain that it’s a five or six hour drive just across the state of PA, but I think he’s permanently crossed Pittsburgh off his list of possible vacation spots.

I don’t know if it’s my lack of French skills or his "lightning-quick" mind, but the remainder of the dinner conversation was very confusing; with the aid of Isabelle, we talked about Tohm‘ahnks and Forrest Gump, 9-11 and an acquaintance of his who narrowly avoided disaster, possible places in the US to catch shrimp, swear words (or “gros mots” - fat words), and literature. He asked me about some obscure American authors I didn’t know or couldn’t recognize (see the above Tom Hanks phenomenon), and I told him I’d just finished a book by Jane Austen, whom he had never heard of.

I don’t think having a new person here will change the dynamic of the apartment too much. After all, I haven’t seen Mr. Morgan around at all, aside from when he moved in. I think Veronique’s glad about having someone else here, though; she seems to have minimal interactions with Isabelle, and the only thing she ever says to me is, “Oh! You scared me!” whenever I walk into a room she’s in. Actually, that happens every single time. It’s getting to the point where I wait for her to leave an area before I try entering. I wonder if she’s lost her peripheral vision or something…I’m not that alarming. I don't think. Also, the addition of a roommate might lessen Malicious’ vicious attacks to the backs of my legs any time I go into the kitchen or walk past the shelf where her cat food is kept. Or at least, there’s another pair of legs for her to pounce on now. Distribute the violence more agreeably for my shins.

The French Eating Experience, or Why I Haven't Bought Any New Shoes

I can’t believe that I haven’t made a bigger deal out of the food. I know I’ve mentioned it before – the fresh fruit, the quiches, the delicate slices of ham, the little chocolate cakes that can only tackily be described as ‘molten’ – but I don’t think you’ve gotten the whole scrumptious picture. I don’t know if you’ll have the whole picture even after this entry…it is truly je ne sais quoi.

I suppose the market is where it all begins. You’re fresh off the plane, and you’re picking your way along the streets until they suddenly widen out into a larger plaza and you stumble into a market. Aix has maybe three main markets selling everything from tulips to lipstick, but my favorite one has to be the daily market conveniently located two blocks from the apartment. Of course, it’s a food market. I don’t know what time the vans arrive with their produce, but by the time I get there, it’s hot and crowded and full of fantastic things to eat. I tend to stick to the fresh fruits and veg – I’ve gotten two different varieties of cherries, a large and rosy tomato, so many peaches that they’ve started coming out my pores, a collection of strawberries, raspberries, and maybe even a bilberry or two (do they exist?), and on several occasions, I’ve stared longingly at the large bunches of artichokes.

I’ve also bought a lot of dips and spreads. After a horrifying misunderstanding with anchovy paté, I’ve bounced back to sample red pepper spread, olive tapenade, a sundried tomato paste, olive oil, honey, and something mysteriously beige that turned out to be hummus. Isabelle keeps something in the fridge that’s bright pink and made of eggs and fish, but I haven’t amassed the courage to try that. The rest have all gone on fresh bread (olive bread, cheese bread, multigrain, and of course crusty white bread) that by some miracle is still hot when I get to the shops by midmorning. Along with bread and fruit, I’ve found sweet garlic the friendly vendor let me taste, explaining it was cooked and cured and good on salads. I’ve also been searching for the perfect cheese (something along the lines of St. Andre, hopefully), and have purchased a lot of fromage to that end.

One note about paying in the market: French people hate it when you don’t have the right amount of money, even if they do have change. If your total ends up being 4E55 and you only have a 20E note, you’d better start groveling and désolé-ing as you reach for your wallet. Be searching for 55 cents, or at least a nickel. Brace yourself for a sigh of impatience or even an eye roll. If all you’ve got is 50E, forget about it…you’ll have to go to a bank and get change, or try breaking it in a larger store. Small storeowners and café waiters will probably give you the same reaction as the market vendors.

I’d be remiss in this entry if I didn’t mention the wine. The area of France I’m currently staying in is famous for their rosé wines, which have nothing to do with roses or blush wines in the US. They’re very good. Red wines are also a big deal; I was in a restaurant (eating an incredible molten chocolate cake à la mode) when the older couple beside me decided to order an expensive red. The man asked to see the wine list, then got up out of his seat and wandered around the restaurant, peering suspiciously into the wine racks. He then returned to his table and furtively spoke to his wife while making excited jabs with his finger in the direction of one rack. When the waiter came to take his wine order, he asked to see the bottle, and sat it on the table for a minute or two while thoughtfully sipping his aperitif, then finally called the waiter back over and told him to take it away and bring it back in five minutes. The waiter did so, after pouring it ceremoniously into a wide-bottomed decanter. The wine was then ceremoniously poured, swirled, and tasted…and at this point I had to consciously look away, because I had been staring for the past fifteen minutes.

After dinner, if I haven’t had dessert (or if I have…), I usually go to a café and get a grande crème, or a café au lait. It’s served with a little ginger cookie and a small glass of water. I’m not yet sure if you’re supposed to drink the water before, after, or during the whole coffee process. If it’s too hot for coffee, I can try a mint syrup drink and a biscuit or some neat little candies that look like olives, but which are really almonds covered in dark chocolate and colored white chocolate shell.

So…I’m growing long-winded. There’s a lot more out there when it comes to food (I haven't really even started on the genuine cuisine), but hopefully you get the idea. This is why I haven’t gotten any shoes or bags or clothing while I’ve been here…every time I step out the door, I decide I need to try some local dish or stop by my favorite brasserie. However, I hear that July is the month of summer sales, so maybe I’ll be able to have my cake and eat it, too.