Well, here I am on my last day in France. Can you believe it? I have to say, I was terrified getting on the plane three and a half months ago and I almost peed my pants when I heard French on the airplane on the way over. I was scared of everything--French people, stores, buses, trams, the city. And now, look at me. I have successfully used the bus system (my most proud achievement), I speak French in every restaurant and store I enter, I managed to go to Paris twice and not get lost, I became fluent in another language, and managed to live successfully with a real French family for a third of the year in a CITY.
Now, I'm packing my bags and preparing to say goodbye to head back to my tiny town, and I couldn't be more proud of myself. I feel as though I could accomplish anything after this semester. It definitely wasn't an easy time. I laughed, I cried, I was happy, I felt violent at times, I was frustrated, and I was proud. And I wouldn't change that roller-coaster of emotions for anything. So, now I've given all my gifts and thank-you notes (yes, mom, you did raise me right), but I do still have one more thank you note to write. And that would be to all of you. Forty-three posts later, I have had 670 readers and counting from a number of countries--the United States, Israel, France, Croatia, South Africa, UK, Canada, etc. So thank you for being mildly interested in the happenings of a small town girl trying to survive in a foreign city. It's definitely been an adventure and I thank you for following along. Can't wait to make it back!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
OOPS
I was looking back through all my blogs and realized that I forgot one very critical point during my stay here. Thanksgiving! I apologize for having forgotten, but I think the reason is because Thanksgiving happened to fall on the day after mom left France. But I won't forgive myself if I don't share how wonderful my Thanksgiving day was!
Or rather, how strange it was. We all knew signing up, there were going to be certain family events we would miss out on. In an attempt to mollify our nostalgia for Thanksgiving, IES/France made a valiant effort to give us a traditional, American Thanksgiving. Let me just say right now, nice try, but no thank you. IES consists of 60 girls and 19 boys (those lucky guys, eh?), plus all of our host parents/siblings, and the staff of IES. This amounts to...a lot of people. You may remember me mentioning that French restaurants tend to seat three or four people comfortably at a time. I'm sure it was quite a task to find a restaurant for so many people.
Once we were all crammed in there, they passed around various glasses of something bright and colorful while we all made polite yet awkward conversation with each other in various languages. And then! came the meal. We started out French style with a salad--which had fish in it. Please name one American who has fish for Thanksgiving. Needless to say, they had lots of leftover fish. Then we had our main meal brought out to us. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and roasted nuts. Sounds pretty normal, right? If by normal you mean turkey so dry, I literally had no more moisture left in my mouth to eat it, stuffing that resembled anything BUT stuffing (I had to ask the waitress what it was and she rolled her eyes like...duh? stuffing?). This stuff looked like meatloaf. Come to think of it, I don't think those were cranberries, either. They were kind of small. And the nuts...well...they were nuts (pun intended). Oh, I almost forgot the canned potatoes. Yes, such a thing does exist.
But, my favorite part of the night has to be the pumpkin pie. I know the lighting in the restaurant was kind of funny, but I swear that pumpkin pie was glowing. It was definitely neon orange and I was afraid I was putting something radioactive into my body. Again, that restaurant had lots of leftovers.
The good thing about having Thanksgiving dinner with 78 other Americans who were also missing their traditional family Thanksgiving is that we were all able to laugh our butts off at this pathetic attempt at a Thanksgiving. The only bad thing was, the French had no idea why were all laughing hysterically and only eating half of our food (I say blame the fish). It definitely made us sit around and appreciate how cooking a turkey has been made into an art form by our brothers, uncles, whoever. The smell of bread rolls is probably the best thing ever to wake up to. Thanksgiving is the only time of year it's acceptable to eat seven different kinds of dessert. The seven different kinds of desserts that came from seven different arguing family members who claim THEIRS was the best LAST year. Potatoes are a staple, in whatever form. Cranberry sauce, regardless of the source, is always perfect--mostly because it just looks festive. And no matter what anybody else says, our moms make the best pie crust. So, even though France tried and failed to give us the Thanksgiving experience, we all had a blast just being together and appreciating how crazy our families can be during the holidays. I know we're all looking forward to more craziness with Christmas meals!
Or rather, how strange it was. We all knew signing up, there were going to be certain family events we would miss out on. In an attempt to mollify our nostalgia for Thanksgiving, IES/France made a valiant effort to give us a traditional, American Thanksgiving. Let me just say right now, nice try, but no thank you. IES consists of 60 girls and 19 boys (those lucky guys, eh?), plus all of our host parents/siblings, and the staff of IES. This amounts to...a lot of people. You may remember me mentioning that French restaurants tend to seat three or four people comfortably at a time. I'm sure it was quite a task to find a restaurant for so many people.
Once we were all crammed in there, they passed around various glasses of something bright and colorful while we all made polite yet awkward conversation with each other in various languages. And then! came the meal. We started out French style with a salad--which had fish in it. Please name one American who has fish for Thanksgiving. Needless to say, they had lots of leftover fish. Then we had our main meal brought out to us. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and roasted nuts. Sounds pretty normal, right? If by normal you mean turkey so dry, I literally had no more moisture left in my mouth to eat it, stuffing that resembled anything BUT stuffing (I had to ask the waitress what it was and she rolled her eyes like...duh? stuffing?). This stuff looked like meatloaf. Come to think of it, I don't think those were cranberries, either. They were kind of small. And the nuts...well...they were nuts (pun intended). Oh, I almost forgot the canned potatoes. Yes, such a thing does exist.
But, my favorite part of the night has to be the pumpkin pie. I know the lighting in the restaurant was kind of funny, but I swear that pumpkin pie was glowing. It was definitely neon orange and I was afraid I was putting something radioactive into my body. Again, that restaurant had lots of leftovers.
The good thing about having Thanksgiving dinner with 78 other Americans who were also missing their traditional family Thanksgiving is that we were all able to laugh our butts off at this pathetic attempt at a Thanksgiving. The only bad thing was, the French had no idea why were all laughing hysterically and only eating half of our food (I say blame the fish). It definitely made us sit around and appreciate how cooking a turkey has been made into an art form by our brothers, uncles, whoever. The smell of bread rolls is probably the best thing ever to wake up to. Thanksgiving is the only time of year it's acceptable to eat seven different kinds of dessert. The seven different kinds of desserts that came from seven different arguing family members who claim THEIRS was the best LAST year. Potatoes are a staple, in whatever form. Cranberry sauce, regardless of the source, is always perfect--mostly because it just looks festive. And no matter what anybody else says, our moms make the best pie crust. So, even though France tried and failed to give us the Thanksgiving experience, we all had a blast just being together and appreciating how crazy our families can be during the holidays. I know we're all looking forward to more craziness with Christmas meals!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The French Government at its Finest
Now that I have six days left in France, this country decides to tell me they want to make sure I didn't bring any diseases to the country. So in order to obtain the last bit of my visa, a medical visit would take place. Seriously. Even my host family thinks this process is stupid. The medical visit allows me to have a stamp in my visa that tells anyone who looks at it, that I'm here in France legally. So, does that mean I have been here illegally this whole time? So, here's a sample of how well the French system works.
I got a letter in the mail written by President Sarkozy himself (just kidding), that had four pages of things I needed to bring to this appointment. So I went and paid five euros for an I.D. picture, I paid fifty five euros for a stamp...a STAMP, I obtained Nathalie's ID, an attestation from her, one of her utility bills, my passport, all three of my insurance cards, my vaccination record, my medical exam from the USA, my glasses, and a whole other stack of papers that prove I am who I say I am and that I am indeed a student. Yes, I felt very secure carrying that folder with me on the bus and tram. It would've taken the jaws of life to pry my arms open for that folder. And do you want to know what the secretary at the desk looked at when I checked in? ONE LOUSY PAPER! And was it one of my papers? NO. It was one of the four that they sent me.
So then, she tells me to sit back down and wait. I wait. She calls me back up, hands me a whole other stack of "very important papers" and tells me to go to the next room and wait. So I go to the next room. And I wait. Then I get to talk to a lovely French nurse who takes my height and weight and so on and so forth and demands to know why I haven't gotten the HPV vaccine. Then she advertised it and suggested I get it while I'm here in France. She proceeds to hand me a condom with the comment, "You're going to need this." I don't know about you, but this medical exam just gets stranger and stranger. So she tells me to go back to the first room and wait. So what do I do? I wait. And wait. Then I go to get my chest x-ray which I was NOT happy about. I was also not happy about having to strip down in front of three other French people. After that awkward moment, I was told to go back out into the second room and wait. So I waited and a nice woman brings me my x-ray and tells me I need to keep it and that it was very important. Then, she tells me to wait. SO...I wait and finally, the doctor comes to see me. We go back in her office and she asks lots of family history questions and asks me repeatedly if I smoke. Then she demands WHAT on earth I have done to my back as the x-ray shows my spine like this? No really...it's a question mark. So that's interesting. Then she hands me back my stack of important papers I acquired from the secretary and my very important x-ray while I'm still clutching my folder full of important EVERYTHING, and the doctor tells me to go back out to the first room and wait. By this time, I'm sure my face was as red as Elmer Fudd's, because I was damn ready to get out of there. Twenty minutes later, the secretary calls me back up and asks for the documents listed on the OFII letter. FINALLY! My important documents have a purpose! She takes two of the papers. Doesn't look at anything or ask for anything. Pardon my French, but why the fuck would they send four pages of requirements threatening you under penalty of death if you forgot ONE thing if they were only going to look at two??? She tells me to sit back down and wait. Some woman who has an unfortunate case of balding finally calls me back to her office where she explains I need to keep the x-ray and the stack of important papers the secretary gave me and then she gives me two more "very important" papers that I need to keep for my records. And FINALLY she opens my passport and puts a stamp in it! Victory!
Two full hours later, I walk out of that god-awful building after having been in every single room and waited at some point. But I had my stamp on my passport that said I could be here legally for the rest of the six days I will be here. And the trip back on the tram, I was some sort of crazy. Anybody who touched me was a terrorist. I clutched my very important papers as if they were my lifeline to sanity, because after that ordeal, I needed a lifeline!
But my favorite part of the day was when the balding woman told me I needed to go to such and such building at the end of January in order to obtain some other important paper. When I laughed and said I would be gone in six days, she got just about as angry as I felt and spouted off that the government wouldn't even receive my medical paperwork until at least three weeks after I was gone and that I would have been better off skipping it. Efficiency...
I got a letter in the mail written by President Sarkozy himself (just kidding), that had four pages of things I needed to bring to this appointment. So I went and paid five euros for an I.D. picture, I paid fifty five euros for a stamp...a STAMP, I obtained Nathalie's ID, an attestation from her, one of her utility bills, my passport, all three of my insurance cards, my vaccination record, my medical exam from the USA, my glasses, and a whole other stack of papers that prove I am who I say I am and that I am indeed a student. Yes, I felt very secure carrying that folder with me on the bus and tram. It would've taken the jaws of life to pry my arms open for that folder. And do you want to know what the secretary at the desk looked at when I checked in? ONE LOUSY PAPER! And was it one of my papers? NO. It was one of the four that they sent me.
So then, she tells me to sit back down and wait. I wait. She calls me back up, hands me a whole other stack of "very important papers" and tells me to go to the next room and wait. So I go to the next room. And I wait. Then I get to talk to a lovely French nurse who takes my height and weight and so on and so forth and demands to know why I haven't gotten the HPV vaccine. Then she advertised it and suggested I get it while I'm here in France. She proceeds to hand me a condom with the comment, "You're going to need this." I don't know about you, but this medical exam just gets stranger and stranger. So she tells me to go back to the first room and wait. So what do I do? I wait. And wait. Then I go to get my chest x-ray which I was NOT happy about. I was also not happy about having to strip down in front of three other French people. After that awkward moment, I was told to go back out into the second room and wait. So I waited and a nice woman brings me my x-ray and tells me I need to keep it and that it was very important. Then, she tells me to wait. SO...I wait and finally, the doctor comes to see me. We go back in her office and she asks lots of family history questions and asks me repeatedly if I smoke. Then she demands WHAT on earth I have done to my back as the x-ray shows my spine like this? No really...it's a question mark. So that's interesting. Then she hands me back my stack of important papers I acquired from the secretary and my very important x-ray while I'm still clutching my folder full of important EVERYTHING, and the doctor tells me to go back out to the first room and wait. By this time, I'm sure my face was as red as Elmer Fudd's, because I was damn ready to get out of there. Twenty minutes later, the secretary calls me back up and asks for the documents listed on the OFII letter. FINALLY! My important documents have a purpose! She takes two of the papers. Doesn't look at anything or ask for anything. Pardon my French, but why the fuck would they send four pages of requirements threatening you under penalty of death if you forgot ONE thing if they were only going to look at two??? She tells me to sit back down and wait. Some woman who has an unfortunate case of balding finally calls me back to her office where she explains I need to keep the x-ray and the stack of important papers the secretary gave me and then she gives me two more "very important" papers that I need to keep for my records. And FINALLY she opens my passport and puts a stamp in it! Victory!
Two full hours later, I walk out of that god-awful building after having been in every single room and waited at some point. But I had my stamp on my passport that said I could be here legally for the rest of the six days I will be here. And the trip back on the tram, I was some sort of crazy. Anybody who touched me was a terrorist. I clutched my very important papers as if they were my lifeline to sanity, because after that ordeal, I needed a lifeline!
But my favorite part of the day was when the balding woman told me I needed to go to such and such building at the end of January in order to obtain some other important paper. When I laughed and said I would be gone in six days, she got just about as angry as I felt and spouted off that the government wouldn't even receive my medical paperwork until at least three weeks after I was gone and that I would have been better off skipping it. Efficiency...
Thursday, December 9, 2010
A Week Full of Lasts
Finishing up my last full week here, I have mixed feelings about returning home. I'm thrilled to return home, but at the same time, this is sort of the end of a dream I've always had. And I'm finding it hard to believe it's almost over. Some things I'm happy to leave--like the buses and the dog poop on the sidewalk. But I will for sure miss my boulangerie, my students at Deux Rives, my favorite creperie, my host family, and the list goes on. I'm slowly walking around Nantes hugging random things like light posts and saying good-bye. Not really, but it's not been easy preparing to leave.
Last night was my last day at Deux Rives and that was definitely hard. Fabien was nice enough to make me brownies AND he cut out the middle for me. :) I've made some close friends there and it wasn't easy walking out the door. But it's as they say, right? All good things must come to an end. Oh, how I hate cliches.
One thing is for sure. Even though I've had a fantastic time, I will be ready to go back home and have my own things again. The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is go in the kitchen and touch EVERYTHING.
One more week!
Last night was my last day at Deux Rives and that was definitely hard. Fabien was nice enough to make me brownies AND he cut out the middle for me. :) I've made some close friends there and it wasn't easy walking out the door. But it's as they say, right? All good things must come to an end. Oh, how I hate cliches.
One thing is for sure. Even though I've had a fantastic time, I will be ready to go back home and have my own things again. The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is go in the kitchen and touch EVERYTHING.
One more week!
Guerande
I had the great pleasure of following Nathalie and Emmanuel to this quaint, Medieval town Sunday. Most of the buildings are still intact, the ramparts still enclose the town and it really does feel like stepping back in history a little bit. The only thing that would've made it more perfect was a huge Medieval-style dress. But I don't think I would've fit in very well. Nathalie is just as much in love with it as I was. She walked around staring up the whole time.
Here, I ate the best crepe of my life. I know I say that every time I try a new one, but I'm serious this time. A caramel crepe with a scoop of caramel ice cream. Seriously now--it tops all. Although, I have to say, I felt a little judged when I was scraping up all the caramel. Granted, I was pretty close to taking the paint off the plate, but, try to understand. Come to think of it--I can't even remember what I had for the actual meal...
Anyways, the reason why I was ready to take a bite out of that plate was because the caramel is made with the salt cultivated in Guerande. So, real butter+real sea salt=fantastic caramel. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I can't show you, but I got to see the banks where they um..."harvest?" salt. It was pretty gray and cold, and no one was out, but it's still pretty cool. We drove around the coast for about an hour and I listened to a French version of Papa. Emmanuel knows his history!
And Nathalie knows her fashion. She explained that stripes became a huge thing in fashion last year and everybody wore them. She doesn't know why, but the style kind of died out this year. I know why! After being at RES for K-6, seven years of red, brown, and blue stripes (by the time I left the red was more orange than red), for a long time after, I wanted to throw up upon seeing a stripe. Imagine seeing stripes on people EVERYWHERE. Barf.
Here, I ate the best crepe of my life. I know I say that every time I try a new one, but I'm serious this time. A caramel crepe with a scoop of caramel ice cream. Seriously now--it tops all. Although, I have to say, I felt a little judged when I was scraping up all the caramel. Granted, I was pretty close to taking the paint off the plate, but, try to understand. Come to think of it--I can't even remember what I had for the actual meal...
Anyways, the reason why I was ready to take a bite out of that plate was because the caramel is made with the salt cultivated in Guerande. So, real butter+real sea salt=fantastic caramel. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I can't show you, but I got to see the banks where they um..."harvest?" salt. It was pretty gray and cold, and no one was out, but it's still pretty cool. We drove around the coast for about an hour and I listened to a French version of Papa. Emmanuel knows his history!
And Nathalie knows her fashion. She explained that stripes became a huge thing in fashion last year and everybody wore them. She doesn't know why, but the style kind of died out this year. I know why! After being at RES for K-6, seven years of red, brown, and blue stripes (by the time I left the red was more orange than red), for a long time after, I wanted to throw up upon seeing a stripe. Imagine seeing stripes on people EVERYWHERE. Barf.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Staying in the "Know"
One thing I was worried about when I came here was that I wasn't going to have any idea what was happening in the United States. Turns out the French kick our butts when it comes to staying informed. I'm pretty sure they had more of an idea what happened in our elections than most Americans--and I can assure you, they are pointing their fingers and laughing about this one. While I've been here, I think I've stayed more "in the know" than I did at home. I think this is largely because of the differences in media.
In the United States, media works as a business: how can we get people to watch our show? How can we sell more papers? What do people want to hear? In my opinion, media here wants to actually inform people. I've also seen the media here used as a form of debate.The news is interactive. This has been made most evident with the recent Wikileaks scandal. I have no idea if NYTimes has the intention of publishing these once secret documents, or if they already have (yes, I am well-informed), but I do know that France has had no problem publishing the documents. As a result, many arguments have been started about how much news is too much news, why someone would steal these documents, was it right, and what happens now? Everyone does agree on one thing: international discussions will probably not be the same anymore. I wonder how many Americans realize this. I wonder if I would realize this if I were only reading American news sources instead of French ones. No question exists that American media ideals are different from that of the French, but after a scandal like this, I have to wonder from where these ideals originate. Do they come from a strictly capitalist standpoint, or do they really think this is too much news to give to the public? As of right now, from where I stand across the ocean, it just seems as if we are one step behind everyone else in the news.
***Sorry for the word vomit I produced over the last couple of days. I hope you forgive me for the incredibly short blog I've written today. :)
In the United States, media works as a business: how can we get people to watch our show? How can we sell more papers? What do people want to hear? In my opinion, media here wants to actually inform people. I've also seen the media here used as a form of debate.The news is interactive. This has been made most evident with the recent Wikileaks scandal. I have no idea if NYTimes has the intention of publishing these once secret documents, or if they already have (yes, I am well-informed), but I do know that France has had no problem publishing the documents. As a result, many arguments have been started about how much news is too much news, why someone would steal these documents, was it right, and what happens now? Everyone does agree on one thing: international discussions will probably not be the same anymore. I wonder how many Americans realize this. I wonder if I would realize this if I were only reading American news sources instead of French ones. No question exists that American media ideals are different from that of the French, but after a scandal like this, I have to wonder from where these ideals originate. Do they come from a strictly capitalist standpoint, or do they really think this is too much news to give to the public? As of right now, from where I stand across the ocean, it just seems as if we are one step behind everyone else in the news.
***Sorry for the word vomit I produced over the last couple of days. I hope you forgive me for the incredibly short blog I've written today. :)
Monday, November 29, 2010
Normandy Beaches
I finally got to take my trip to Normandy. I've been waiting to go to Normandy this whole semester. So two other girls and I decided kind of last minute to buy a train ticket to Caen. So we woke up pretty early to catch the first train and didn't realize that we were going to have to take another train to get to Bayeaux to see Omaha Beach. So we sucked it up and went, because we all three really wanted to go. When we got in Bayeaux, we realized that the Saturday buses are next to worthless, so we decided to split the price for a seventy euro taxi. So after six hours, we finally arrived at the American museum and cemetery. We started off in the museum. The museum isn't that big, but it is pretty interesting. It has some tributes from soldiers and a few displays of what they carried or what the medics carried. They also have a sacrifice memorial. Inside this room, someone is constantly reading the names of soldiers who were killed on D-Day. It has a pretty chilling effect. It's very sobering.From here, we walked over to the American cemetery, which overlooks Omaha Beach. It's a really moving place. There are lines and lines and lines of white crosses, and you can't even see the end of it. At first, it's just like any other cemetery, but at some point it strikes you that all these people died in just a few short days. After this realization, it's hard to know what to feel--proud, angry, sad...I don't know what. It's definitely a very somber place that makes you feel an unbelievable amount of respect for the men who charged the beaches that day.
When we got down to the beaches, it's even that much more impressive. There's no way anyone would have been able to RUN up the beaches. Most of them would have been walking under a wall of fire. And remembering my history, a good number of them had to put down their packs to be able to walk through the water. The amount of sheer courage it would have taken to walk up the beach, unarmed with no cover is inconceivable. It's a miracle anyone made it up the beach. It was a very strange experience to walk along the beach with the intention of observing that part of history while there were children playing around war memorials and having fun on the beach. That is the best indication the world can give us that life must go on as usual.But I'm very glad that we went, even though it took ten hours of traveling to spend two hours seeing what we wanted to. It's something I will appreciate for the rest of my life.
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