Everything Turns, Turns, Turns

In the words of The Bride: “You and I have unfinished business.” (My appreciation of the Kill Bill movies comes from college, not from France). I’m back in the United States right now, having spent several wonderful days in Houston with K and her friends before going home. They kept me busy with lots of social gatherings and delicious meals – cultural adjustment is much easier when you don’t have time to notice all of the little differences. One big change I noticed at the airport was the American version of customer service. Instead of being greeted by indifference and being addressed in formal terms, I was called “Pard’ner” and encouraged to converse with the airport staff. I will nevertheless continue posting tales of my adventures in order to complete my narrative before moving over to a new space for my next great voyage: burkinascisteven.blogspot.com

Toulouse: La Ville "Rose"

After PBJ, I had two days of rest and recovery before setting out again for the southwest of France with my choir. We stayed in the village of Finhan, about an hour away from Toulouse, the fourth-largest city in France and regional capital. I traveled with R, a level-headed judge who’s also a bit of a clown, and A, a psychology student in Paris who speaks wonderful English. Upon arrival, we were met by the other choristes at a barbecue which reminded me more of my family reunions in Iowa than of Parisian sophistication. Lots of eating, singing, drinking, and talking set the tone for the week to come. My host family in Finhan was “super cool”: we were free to come and go as we pleased and were offered delicious toast and coffee for breakfast each morning. All of the Nancéins ate at the stadium for lunch and dinner, providing additional opportunities for discussion and sunbathing. The others kept trying to draw me into their soccer games but I explained that while I could appreciate the French national obsession for the sport, I preferred to write and relax. Perhaps it’s a cultural trait, but several friends asked to see what I was writing and wanted to know why it was in English (I spoke French the entire week, so I didn’t feel terribly guilty).

On our free day, we went to a cave à vin for a dégustation of fine wines at 11am. That afternoon, we visited a beautiful little chapelle that had a cost-saving secret: all of the beautiful objects were made out of carefully painted wood instead of gold. To cap off the afternoon, we went to a rum distillerie and gave an impromptu demonstration of our singing talents for the other patrons. We had some rehearsals mixed into the program, but they lasted only an hour and a half and were more for clarification and last minute fixes than for major changes. Le lendemain, we gave our first concert at a small church in a neighboring village. It was a nice test run, but I held back a bit, which is the worst thing to do at a gospel concert. I had run a few miles in the morning for relaxation but hadn’t practiced as much as I would’ve liked to and felt a bit unconfident.

After a brief répétition the next day, we went to the Musée des Métiers d’Autrefois and saw plow and other farm equipment from the area. Upstairs, the curators had arranged dioramas of old professions such as le balaitier (the broom-maker). Most placards ended with the following statement: Il travaille toujours selon la tradition artisinale et assure toutes les étapes de la fabrication (He always works according to the artisanal tradition and assures all of the steps of the building process). On Friday, we had some quartier libre and several of us went to Toulouse. Due to transit time and the search for parking, we only had two hours in the city. We managed to see the basilica, les Jacobins, and the famous “pink” bricks for which the city is known. In the April light they looked orange – perhaps at June 17th at 5:36 pm they’re pink? That night, A and I had a long conversation in English about the differences in university life, relationship culture, and racism in France and America.

On our last day, I went for another nice jog and was then left to watch the children for awhile while their guardians did housekeeping. Like all gosses, they were cute and happy one minute, crying and screaming the next. Thankfully, the most sensitive ones went into the house and their less moody siblings played contentedly in the grass. We gave our second (and my last) concert that night and it went phenomenally. Yes, there were issues with the little children following orders, but at least they were still cute enough to get away with it. I sang with tout mon coeur and had a great time. R drove A and I home right after the concert, and I was able to pass out until 2 pm.

PBJ: Sights and Food

My two trips had very different goals and thus very different sight-seeing and food itineraries. In Paris, cheering on my friends while they ran the marathon pre-empted more organized sight-seeing and well-planned gourmet meals. Furthermore, I was staying in a youth hostel with three college-aged males who were trying to carbo-load before and after the race. We ate kebabs, Chinese takeout, pizza, bread slathered in chocolate, beer, chips and some fruit (to be fair the kebabs, Chinese food and pizza included vegetables). As the guys were all too tired to search for reasonable fare after the race, we went to the McDo on the Champs Élysées. They each devoured 4 hamburgers and a large order of fries while I quietly ate my fish sandwich and sipped on my Coke. Classy Midwesterners, through and through. On Monday, we all went to the Louvre for a few hours before R and I had to depart. The musée had a wonderful temporary exhibit about the ancient African civilization of Meroe.

Par contre, Barcelona was about catching up with friends while soaking up the amazing sights in one of Spain’s most beautiful cities. K, our lovely travel guide, kept us on the move. The first day we were there, we saw Las Ramblas, the Mercado, the Porto, and the Catedral de la Sagrada Familia. She did let us make some pit stops for coffee along the way at delicious little cafés (and a Starbucks – but only once!). Day 2 was taken up by our travels to Parc Guell, a stroll through the medieval district, and my tour of the aquarium while the ladies explored a Gaudi house. I was lucky enough to travel in the company of some genuine foodies and we were able to savor long tapas dinners. My favorite appetizer was las patatas bravas, followed by shrimp or chicken depending on the night. K’s friend A showed us some great bars including the French expat hangout and a secret after-hours club.

PBJ: Friends

I’m very glad that I decided to spend a few days in Paris before leaving for the rest of my vacation, as it allowed me to say goodbye to E. As you may remember, E was my laid-back roommate from Nebraska who adores large helpings of stew, long runs, and relaxed conversations. He met up with A and R, some friends from college, to take a victory lap around one of the world’s greatest capitals before heading back to ‘Merica. Je, Ja, and L were the lovely ladies also along for the ride. They have a very strong bond based on complementary personalities : Je is very lively and loves to talk, Ja has some street-cred going on, and L is a Midwestern sweetheart who just wants to get know people. I spent most of Sunday morning with Ja and L and it was fun to cheer for the runners (Je, E, R, and A) together. The girls also decided to encourage others based on their racing tags and were met by various expressions of ignorance, disgust, fatigued thanks, and WOW.

My original reason for making the trek to Barcelona was simple : I had taken a Spanish class last summer and wanted to practice my language skills in a Spanish-speaking country. In the course of planning meet-ups with various friends this spring, I noticed that the easiest way to see my friend G would be on vacation. G is my fun-loving, intelligent, and effortlessly-cool friend who’s a teaching assistant in Strasbourg. She brought along one of her friends, K, a sweet witty young lady who also hails from the Heartland. We worked out wonderfully as travel partners since we all had the same sort of internal rhythm going : wake up mid-morning and have brunch, do some sites, eat a nice sandwich lunch, more sightseeing, nap/Internet break, dinner and drinks. A few hours after meeting K, I was introduced to A. She’s Parisienne by birth, but a citizen of the world by choice : she was a French language assistant at K’s university last year and is now working in Barcelona as a French and English teacher. A reminded me of a more intense version of G and showed all the great spots that the cool kids frequent : a Catalan dive bar, a French expatriate bar/café, and a secret club that involved climbing many stairs and password-only admission. It was at this point in the night when we met AEA : American Expatriate AssholeTM. He proceeded to lecture us on how Europe was SO much more civilized than America, using the same generalities that anyone who had read two articles in the New York Times could tell you. When G had the gall to suggest that we had indeed thought about several quality of life issues and cultural differences, he countered by talking about his friends in CA who had to put their kids in private preschool to avoid them becoming pimps and gangsta drug lords. K suggested that paying 15K a year was perhaps more of a choice and he shouted back « You’re WRONG ! » Through a coordinated campaign of targeted questions and reminders about common decency, we managed to chase him from the table. After a restful night of repose, we met V at the metro on our way to Parc Guell. She’s a spunky independent spirit from Ontario who loves taking photos. More laughs ensued and we had a great time for the rest of our stay in Barcelona.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Bonjour! No, I didn't drop off the face of the planet the last few weeks, though they have lead to some interesting experiences. I arrived back in Nancy on Sunday at 10:30 am after we had driven 8 hours across La France and am in the process of organizing my life for departure this weekend. Spring is usually a stressful season for me, but with exams instead of good-bye soirees and last minute Facebook friend invites. Look for more posts in the next few days!

PBJ - Travel

In order to shake things up around here and avoid another chronological retelling of my voyage, I’ve decided to share some highlights of my recent adventures in Paris and Barcelona using a thematic framework. To wit, this first post will focus on Getting There and Back. Later ones will focus on Friends, Sights, and Food. I’ll be in Toulouse this week with my choir, so blogging will be a bit sporadic. Take care!

My travel to Paris was quite eventful – I took the TGV train comme d’habitude, but was quite tired that afternoon. We had all stayed up late and woken up early to send off E, my housemate who would return to America after a few precious last days in Paris. I did, however, manage to read the first 50 pages of “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” in between naps. Let me preface my next few comments by saying that I LOVE the Paris metro system. It’s fast, efficient, and riding le métro is quite the experience. E got a bee in his bonnet and decided that we should head down to the registration office using city buses and trams rather than take the metro and walk 3 blocks. As the kids say these days, “Epic Fail!” We spent 50 minutes on a bus and 30 minutes on a tram, yet the ride back home took 8 minutes on the metro. Thankfully, he saw the error of his ways and we rode the metro for the rest of the trip.

I had accidentally booked my flight to Barcelona for 9:30 pm instead of 9:30 am. Whoops, though this oversight did give me more time in Paris before I had to say goodbye to E. I flew out of Orly , which is roughly twice the size of the airport in Wichita, KS instead of the massive beast that is Charles DeGaulle. I was able to take an RER (Réseau Express Régional - Regional Express Network) straight to the airport with only a 5 euro supplement. My flight on Vueling Airlines went smoothly and upon exiting the Barcelona airport, I managed to find the city bus stop. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, one of Spain’s more independent autonomous regions, and all of the signs were posted in Spanish, English, and Catalan. Just another reminder for my students that English helps all over the world! I decided to take the 1.40 € city bus rather than the 5€ shuttle bus and consequently my journey took 1.5 hours rather than .5 hours. Though the metro wasn’t working in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, I was able to find my hostel only to realize that there was no reception between 1 am and 8 am. I walked around a bit, popped into a 24 hour snack shop, and contemplated some of my life decisions while sitting across from a gaggle of drunk girls who were devouring burritos in the park. Luckily, these ladies attracted some drunk male college students who mentioned the name of the hostel (Sant Jordi – Saint George in Catalan) who let me enter the premises. I crashed on a quite comfortable couch until reception opened, then switched to a slightly more comfortable bed for a few hours.

While everyone else was freaking out about the Unutterable Horror that had erupted in Iceland, I was oblivious to any disturbances. My journey from Barcelona back to Nancy went off without a hitch, in part because I had given myself far more time than I usually do to reach my train. One quick note about paying for bathrooms: perhaps this is to encourage local commerce? I for one would rather enjoy a pleasant pause in a café rather than disinfect a public facility. Many times, the difference between these experiences is about .50€. Another thing I love about coffeeshops is that you often get free Wi-Fi and access to other services with your selection. Back in my university town, lots of students studied in coffeeshops with laptops, iPods, and warm beverages to relax them. In return, though, patrons should probably purchase something at least every few hours.

Day 5/Canterbury and Departure

C fixed us a delicious breakfast of toast and jam before dropping us back at the bus. He said that he had chosen to host us not for the money or out of obligation, but because he had five adult children out in the world and would want someone to offer them shelter for the night in a similar situation. M, our chauffeur, relied on his extensive English experience to organize a day trip for us to Canterbury, famous for its Cathedral and Chaucer’s bawdy pilgrim tales. We did lots of shopping at souvenir places, bought 30p postcards instead of paying 10 pounds ($15) to tour the Cathedral, and bought a novelty birthday hat for K who was celebrating his 19th birthday in a foreign country. A pagan parade passed by, promising a large gathering of local Wiccans and fairies in a few weeks. The profs had tea at Tiny Tim’s Teahouse, which has trapdoors in the bathroom in case of fire. We then went to Folkstone to catch the train again as the ferry workers would be on strike for all of Easter weekend. My wonderful colleagues gave me a travel pillow for all of my future voyages and much fun was had by all. About 10 pm, M found a Top-40 pop station and cranked up the tunes. Within two minutes, the lights were on strobe and the kids were dancing and drinking in the back of the bus. This lasted about 15 minutes before everyone settled in and watched a film. I caught a ride home with one student, opened my door at 2 am and was surprised to find all of our kitchen furniture in the hallway. My housemates had thrown an Easter party and I was the first one home that night!

Day 4/Rochester

We said goodbye to our host families and packed in the bus for the (tentatively) last day of our trip to England. On the way to Rochester for a Dickens-themed tour, V spoke to me a bit about the unsettling conversation last night and explained that most of these views were only shared by older generations. She has black friends and family members as do many others as intermarriage is becoming more common in France. Our tour guide in Rochester was, incidentally, black and came dressed up as Pickwick from the Pickwick Papers. He gave a wonderful tour in perfect French, explaining how Dickens wove details about Rochester into Edwin Drood, The Pickwick Papers, and Great Expectations. H and I were enthralled by the town’s history, but the students were more interested in arguing, texting, and trying to break up established couples. G bargained for a special deal at a local Italian restaurant whose owner had moved the entire staff from his village in Sicily. The Guildhall Musuem had some amazing reconstructions of life on the hulls, the detention ships used in the 19th century as a solution to overcrowded prisons. Upon leaving the museum, we received word that our ferry for the night had been canceled due to strikes on the English side. While the kids panicked, H tried to explain that this incident showed that we were truly “on an island” until V told him it wasn’t helping. The lycée called all of the families and our travel company found temporary host families for the night. D, the assistant chauffer, bought the profs cider at a local restaurant where we relaxed away from the nervous students. I went with H and D to stay at C’s house in a the nice adjoining town of Gillingham. Whereas Brighton is a rich retirement area, the Rochester urban area more closely resembles rust-belt America between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. It was actually quite refreshing to talk to someone who still worked and we discussed food transport, the weather, and local history over shepherd’s pie and mashed potatoes.

Day 3/Foggy London Town

After a hearty traditional English breakfast, we made the long slow journey into London. Brighton actually isn’t too far away from the capital, but traffic in the suburbs was terrible. This did, however, mean that I got to see some interesting restaurant combinations that result from ethnically-mixed neighborhoods: Halal Chinese Buffet. (Note: “halal” in this case refers to food permitted by Islamic law). We set the students loose in the big city, reminding them that they only had three hours of temps libre and not to get lost. As for the profs, we enjoyed a nice tea break at a charming café next to Westminster Abbey and lunch in Trafalgar Square after popping into some souvenir shops. Our visit to the National Gallery was supposed to last one hour, but one of the students became enraptured with the Italian Renaissance Art and we had to send back search parties (yes, plural) to find him. More souvenir shops awaited us on Oxford Street and I supervised the students as they bought inappropriate logo T-shirts referencing McDonald’s and Adidas. Quick side note: everyone here says MacDonald’s and MacDo in French, which just reminds me of Old MacDonald Had a Farm.

While I enjoyed London, I was shocked until dinner that night. Over fish and chips, the host family proceeded to denounce blacks, Arabs, Romanians, Poles, and other ethnic groups who had ruined the beautiful capital with their poverty-ridden slums. The fish I had just eaten jumped up my throat a bit and I had to decide whether to smile and nod or bolt to the bathroom. Thankfully, the BBC was playing in the background and we were able to discuss the terrible snowstorms in Scotland and Wales. Their views of immigrants as disease vectors instead of people reminded me of some of the more radical rhetoric concerning Central and South American immigrants in the United States. One big difference between the US and Western Europe is that we have a long history of immigration and have gone through the Civil Rights Movement. I’m in no way claiming that racism is dead in America, only suggesting that we are more aware of a) how dangerous racial and ethnic tensions can be and b) the many economic and social benefits that come from having a diverse multicultural society. Furthermore, there is a lack of role models for minority youth in Europe – they really don’t have an equivalent of Beyonce, Oprah, Jennifer Lopez, Barack Obama, Sonia Sotomayor, or Amy Tan. Having been raised in a multicultural society with heritage plays, these dramatically different societal dynamics struck me from my first day in Europe.

On The Road Again

I just wanted to pop in to say that I'm once again traveling instead of writing up blog posts. This past weekend, I went to Paris with E and some other friends to watch them run the Paris Marathon and say goodbye. Since our contracts end May 1st and our vacation goes until 25th, several assistants managed to offer additional conversation classes in March to work their remaining hours and snag cheaper flights. I'm currently hanging out with G and her friend K in Barcelona. Today we saw La Sagrada Familia, some interesting Guadi homes, a medieval district rich with history, and a few lovely parks. Look for more updates soon - hasta luego!

Day 2/Blast from the Past

Le lendemain (the next day), I took a hot shower and scarfed down a quick breakfast of toast and jam before heading to the bus with the other chaperones. We took a 1.5 hour trip through the picturesque English countryside and I noticed that the villages were full of thatched-roof cottages, trimmed hedges, and carefully maintained riding trails. Contrary to the information listed in our program, there were no guides and the inside of the castle contained no furnishings. There was a 15-minute film about the historical use and development of the castle which I had to help translate. After about 15 minutes, it looked like a Works Progress Administration project like the small “castle” built near my house where teenagers sneak off to drink on weekends. The students decided to play “cache-cache” (hide-and-go-seek) and ended up having lots of fun. As we were leaving, I passed the Comments bulletin board and noticed the following observation made by a 9 year old English girl: “It was lots of fun, but I was afraid of the ducks!”

We ate an exceptional picnic in the bus with sandwiches and fruit, and then ducked inside the station service for a coffee break. Our next destination was a game center next to a supermarket. I had to help one of the students who couldn’t remember what “gelé” translated to in English (“jelly”) but kept mentioning how much her mother liked to cook things in it (?!). At the game center, some of the students asked if they could go bowling instead of playing Laser Quest. The manager did OK it, but it took a while for V and I to count how many kids wanted to do each. G and H watched bowling while we played Laser Quest with some of the kids. It was really interesting to watch their strategies. M, for example, ran all over the place and tried to shoot more than he got hit. His girlfriend C and her BFF J had another strategy. They hid behind a partition and would jump out to say “Souris!” (Smile!) before blasting away at you. That night, we ate delicious chili con carne and looked at some other examples of English castles. One of them is an almost mirror image of the famous Mont St. Michel chateau in France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_St._Michel), though my colleagues explained that ours was a bit taller. Three more days to go…

Day 1/Travel

Our voyage commenced with long bus journey to Calais with stop at Reims, first of many coffee conversations with the other profs. At the border, the kids passed through British douanes (customs) without any problems, but I had to get a travel visa as a non-EU citizen. We took the Eurotunnel across to England, but not on the famous Eurostar train. M, our chauffer, drove the bus into a large train car and we stayed inside for the 30 minute journey. One student felt a bit ill due to the lack of moving air, but everything was fine. I actually got to sleep during the 3 hour trip from Folkstone to Brighton as all of the kids had passed out. As we pulled up to the pier on that dewy morn, V explained that we would have free time for the whole morning. The students thought that this meant “follow profs around and hang out.” They were quickly disabused of this notion and we settled into a delicious English breakfast at a café (sausages, eggs, ham, the works). Then, we strolled along the pier and in the city center, passing many lost students trying to figure out that “bank” really was the English equivalent of “banque” in their desperate search for ATMs. We ate a scrumptious lunch of fish and chips with Guinness at a seaside café and I learned about some of the obstacles university students face in France as they try to become certified teachers. That afternoon, we toured the King’s Pavilion which was built by King George IV of England. We got audioguides in French and I learned that the Music Room had suffered water, fire, and wind damage but the builders wouldn’t be deterred. After some nice tea at a café, we met our host families. All of the profs were staying together with an older couple. A, our hostess, showed us around the neighborhood and explained that it was very safe and thankfully “there are NO black people.” I almost chocked on my chicken right then. More updates to come…

Setting the Scene

Last week, I went on a trip to England with 44 students and 3 other profs from my lycée. Since this was a voyage pédagogique, my part was covered by the Académie (school district). My fellow chaperones were V, the English teacher who’s responsible for me; H, a French and History prof; and G, the director of the Printing Press program. As an American, I felt a bit left out of all of the English/French cultural comparisons, but I helped a lot with translation. All of the directions and chatting on the bus were in French, but at night, I spoke English slowly so that my colleagues could understand. H and G are bilingual in German and Italian respectively, and studied some English at school, but we had to do some creative phrasing to ensure comprehension. Towards the end of the week, I became more comfortable with this split existence. The trip seemed like more of a séjour linguistique for me than for the kids! However, no one suffered any irreparable harm and after the second day the students began chatting in English with their families and with each other.

Magnification

I’ve been reflecting about some of the things that are magnified about my identity in France which weren’t terribly central to my identity in America. Some of these changes are cultural, while others are based on the life cycle (college student versus college graduate). In talking with some of the other assistants who have graduated, I find that we’ve all noticed some of the same differences.
- Foreign languages: how many you speak, what they are, how well you speak them
- Most of my friends back home are familiar with the basic outlines of my academic work (language use within social hierarchies) but few of them could read my foundational texts in the original French.
- In college, everyone had exams/papers to prepare for and to show off their intellect but now we just have lots of free time to indulge our personal interests.
- Rather than being the seeker thirsting for knowledge, I’m expected to be part of the fountain providing relief to parched travelers on the road to wisdom (only a slight exaggeration).
- Pleasure activities instead of work-related ones: most of us don’t have homework in addition to our day-jobs, so we’re defined by what we do for pleasure – surfing the internet, reading books, watching films, drinking wine
- Friendship background: traveling with friends in Europe is different than grabbing a drink at your favorite local bar. Excitement, drama, tension and anticipation all play out amongst the backdrop of gorgeous European cities. For friends back in the US, comparing monthly plans brings home the disconnect between our different worlds. They’re studying for exams, I’m planning trips to aforementioned gorgeous European cities.
- While I’ll be more integrated in Burkina Faso, I will be moving from a nation of high prestige and importance to one of low prestige and importance. The language that I’ll learn to speak will have far less cultural capital than French and few if any people wake up deciding to tour Burkina Faso. On the other hand, my participation in the Peace Corps carries a lot of cultural cachet, notably amongst academics.
I’ll be away this week in England with the students. Look for updates soon!

Les Lycéens

My students have, for the most part, stopped acting up as much as they did in the fall. Part of this is due to my improvement as an assistant, part of it’s due to our better rapport, and part of it is due to maturity. I had forgotten how much 15 year olds can change within a few months, how in flux their personalities are. Nonetheless, I still have some disciplinary issues. There are a few boys who act like hyperactive Labrador retrievers: they always to play with their friends and can never seem to calm down. However, one “Tais-toi!” (Be quiet) from me is enough to elicit a, “Pardon, Monsieur” and then we go on with the lesson. Some of my female students are very quiet, and some are very loud. Most of them don’t realize just how loud their voices are and I keep having to remind them that high school students should be able to express themselves without screaming. But then there are the select few male and female students who have respect issues. I usually just ask the teachers to have a discussion with the loud students who apologize, but I’ve sent a few kids back to their teachers with a note to give them detention. One in particular is quite intelligent, but is used to breezing through life on charm that she can be a bit touchy when corrected. Overall, though, the students are making lots of progress and I can see that having discussion time in a small group helps some of them to put things in context. It’s much easier for me to speak in French or Spanish in blocks rather than in discrete words because my brain hates switching between them and English. My colleagues are also wonderful – they support me inside and outside of the classroom.

Splish-Splash: Aquarium de Nancy

This morning I had some time before classes and decided to explore the patrimoine de la ville (patrimony/cultural heritage of the city) a bit instead of sleeping in. My first visit to the Aquarium de Nancy was on a rainy Saturday afternoon in November. It was a free admission day and the place was packed with kids running around and their desperate parents frantically trying to keep up with them. This time, I was presque (almost) the only visitor at 10 am and I got the reduced student price of €1.50. I quietly strolled amongst the exhibits and took pictures with my new camera (thanks Mom and Dad!). I love watching fish glide through the water and studying how they compete for territory in an enclosed space. As part of the aquarium’s collaboration with Université Nancy Henri Poincaré, one of the exhibits is equipped with sensory devices to measure the electrical output generated by certain species of fish. A monitor at the reception desk shows the time interval between spikes in voltage. While the Aquarium won’t win international recognition any time soon, it serves an important educational function in the community through its detailed exhibits and accessible prices. As I mentioned in my blog posts about Marseille, I think that municipal aquaria and museums are often underfunded and overlooked resources. Perhaps I’ll mosey on down to my own local history museum back in America.

La Vie Provençal: Aix-en-Provence

Wednesday morning, I went jogging along the corniche, scarfed down some pain au chocolat, and caught the bus from Marseille to Aix-en-Provence for €4.50. I was able to leave my luggage at the only auberge de jeunesse in town, though I couldn’t formally check in until 5:00 pm that evening. Walking back to the city center, I bought a delicious piece of goat-cheese pizza for 3 euros and basked in the warm sunlight (sensing a theme here?). I then promptly threw frugality to the wind and bought a 4 euro gaufre au chocolat near the tourist office. As punishment for my hedonism, I now have chocolate stains on my jeans due to overeager eating. I walked along the picturesque Cours Mirabeau with its several fountains, overpriced cafés and shops, and Monoprix. It started raining, so I went to the Musée Granet and discovered that every artist in 19th century Provence painted the same theme: peasants frolicking amongst ruins in southern France or Italy. Every single one. Oh, and Cézanne painted Mont St. Victoire more times than I care to count. Regardless, I felt inspired to write some of my own thoughts down and enjoyed seeing how the region presented its cultural patrimony. I stopped on the way back to take a picture at the Four Dolphins fountain and stumbled into a small international bookstore. Aix-en-Provence is a big university town so they have wonderful foreign language options, unlike the rest of France where trying to find a book in anything other than French is excruciatingly difficult (but still probably easier than in the States). I picked up a Spanish novel “La familia de Pascul Duarte” and “The Turn of the Screw” for some good English-language fiction. My shopping complete, I set off to find the Atelier Cézanne. I had better luck in Aix than in Marseille as this time I arrived 10 minutes before the workshop closed. Since you aren’t allowed to take pictures and it’s one room, I was able to get a good impression of the exhibit pretty quickly and asked a few questions of the helpful tour guide. While I was out, I figured that I’d hit up the Cézanne Trail which led to some other sights. They failed to mention a distance so I gave up after walking for 45 minutes, but enjoyed some spectacular views of the gorgeous campagne. Dinner was a quiche purchased for 3 euros in another bakery and then I headed back to the hostel to relax for the night.

As it turned out, the receptionist took a dinner break from 7:30-8:15 every night, a fact that I learned upon arriving at 7:40 pm. I read my book, checked into my room, and was ready for a peaceful night before I met my roommate. “Youth” in this instance meant “young at heart,” as he was a very nice fortysomething man from Dunkirk who complemented me on my French and asked if I minded that he had brought a TV set to watch. Breakfast the next morning was rather subpar (stale baguettes and butter), but that was only the beginning. Due to confusion about the shuttle schedule, I missed my train out of Aix to Paris. I bought a new one and had to fork out some cash since it was during “peak travel times.” I was OK since I would still have 45 minutes to get from Paris Gare de Lyon to Paris Gare de l’Est. I found out that it takes 49 minutes to get between the gares and missed my second train. Since I had already changed my itinerary once, I was obliged to buy a new ticket. To take my mind off this mishap, I walked around the neighborhood taking photos until my camera was stolen by a pickpocket. Suffice it to say, I eventually made it back to Nancy in one piece and am thankful for my earlier frugality.

On The Edge: Marseille Day 2

My second day in Marseille was less fraught with danger and rain than my first. After a lovely job along la Corniche John F. Kennedy which runs along the Mediterranean Sea, I went to the Musée des Arts Africains, Océaniens, et Amérindiens. Like all municipal museums in the city, it was 2 euros for entry (and the clerk gave me the student discount with no prompting!). An overarching theme to my visit was the reliance of museums on the generosity of individual donors. How else to explain how an ethnographic museum had devoted three rooms to shrunken heads from around the world?! The exhibits made it seem like every South American has been occupied since time immemorial with the collection of têtes réduites. I did, however, appreciate the statement in the African Arts room about how important it is to guard against primitive essentialism. The museum had a small, yet varied collection that demonstrated its donor’s preference for Côte d’Ivoire. I saw a rare female mask-helmet and sculpture designed to evoke les esprits de la brousse (bush spirits). Stepping into the Mexican exhibition room made me feel like I had just gotten off a plane in Las Vegas after having taken a powerful cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs. The fluorescent colors of the masks, trees of life, and other sculptures filled the room with their Day-Glo Hi-Lighter bright reflections. Due to space constraints, the curator had been forced to jam many obras de arte into a few display cases. While this choice certainly permitted the museum to display the most art possible, it also led to the erasure of the identities of the individual artists.

Later, I went to a large church located right near the coast. On the way, I stumbled by the charming Place des Moulins and heard elementary school children singing in their courtyard. The place was a site of urban renewal intended to promote both historical restoration and community pride in a neighborhood (and city) often characterized by the rest of France as a den of foreign criminals and thieves. While the church’s exterior was stunning, the inside was quite plain and didn’t differ too much from the other cathedrals I’ve seen in Europe. After a quick kebab lunch (when the waiter tried to ask me things in broken English before realizing that I was more bilingual than he was), I set off for the ferry dock. Les îles du Frioul are located right off the coast and can be reached by a 15 minute, 10 euro round-trip ferry ride. Due to weather conditions, we weren’t allowed to go to the Château d’If on a neighboring island. The chateau is famous as the inspiration behind Alexandre Dumas, père’s masterpiece “The Count of Monte Cristo.” The islands were primarily a nesting ground for seagulls and served as the anchors for a large marine wildlife preserve in the harbor. On their peaceful boulevards, I sat down and read some more Salammbô and reveled in the beauty of nature. While waiting for my ferry back, I peered into the water neared the dock and spotted several shoals of small fish hiding amongst the boats.

Before turning in for the night, I went to Notre Dame de la Garde, a magnificent church located high above the city. You can walk 30 minutes up a glorious path, or take a bus straight to the top. Tired from hiking, I chose the latter option. Unfortunately, I arrived 20 minutes after the special seasonal closing time went into effect and wasn’t allowed in. Still, I took some amazing photos and walked along the rocky hillside, gazing down at the city. Waiting in the metro station, I noticed a small dark fish tank built into one of the pillars. The few fish inside wanly swam back and forth and I wondered how a city so proud of its maritime heritage could be so careless about some of its installations.

On The Edge: Marseille

After traveling around Germany with my colocataires, I was ready for some personal rest and relaxation and headed off to the South of France. Having grown up in Kansas, I’m still amazed that you can cross a country and be at the beach in six hours. My stay in Marseille got off to a great start: we weren’t allowed to get off the train for twenty minutes due to a “colis suspect” (suspicious package) that had been found on a platform. As I left the gare, I wandered around some rather interesting neighborhoods before finding my hotel, the Vertigo. I felt quite safe during my entire stay there: 24 hour reception, locks on the doors, keys left at the desk so no chance of losing them. Both nights, I shared a 4 person dortoir with two Germans and a Belgian who were also on vacation from their political science program in Bordeaux. I went to Marseille to see the sights and was gone from 7-7; they had come to party and were gone the other twelve hours. Since it was too cold to go to the beach, I spent the first afternoon wandering around in the sunlight, taking pictures and seeing how France’s third-largest city (after Paris and Lyon) functioned. Life moved at a faster pace than in most of the South, but then Marseille is hardly typical of le Midi – its population is composed of immigrants from Greece, Italy, Algeria and their descendants. I popped into le Musée de l’Histoire de Marseille which was mentioned in E’s Lonely Planet Guide. Clue number one that this was to be a different experience: the museum was located in a shopping center next to a Galeries Lafeyette. As I later learned, the museum is constructed around an ancient ship found when they were building the mall. Rather than move the ship, they preserved it in wax and arranged the rest of the museum around it. Marseille was originally a Phocean city known as Marsalas which had a very Greek-inspired culture and economy for several centuries. Most of the museum dealt with ancient pottery and ship-building techniques, which I found to be less than stimulating. After leaving the museum, I walked right out into a rainstorm and fled to Monoprix to faire des courses. My hotel had provided neither complimentary breakfast nor soap so I got some pain au chocolat and savon de Marseille, a famous product of the city whose appellation is still controlled. I retired to my hotel room and finished “Randonée Mortelle,” an Isabelle Adjani flick in which she becomes a mistress to rich young people before killing them for money and sport. Such a comforting thought in a strange city!

Communities

Since I received my placement notice from the Peace Corps nearly a month ago, I’ve been thinking a lot about communities. Specifically, about how hard it is to maintain ties when you move around every few months. One of the nice aspects of the position is that I’ll be in one community for two years after forming strong bonds with my fellow volunteers during a two and half month training period. The Peace Corps places a high priority on community integration – how else can volunteers promote meaningful cultural exchange and truly help their host communities? My family has been very accommodating in dealing with the time difference and it’s not as big of an issue in France as it was in Senegal since a) we’re all more used to the process and b) I have Internet at my residence. My close friends from college have made great efforts as well, but our conversations aren’t as regular because they are at very busy stages in their academic careers: K and R are in their first year of medical school and P is getting ready to graduate and head off to some fabulous to be announced law school. I’ve found a nice group of friends here in Nancy, but we’ve all been a bit reluctant to get too close since we’ll be leaving so soon. An unexpected benefit of my job is that I’ve been able to meet up with several friends from my study abroad program in Senegal. J and I went to Geneva in October, I’ll see K in a few weeks in Strasbourg, and M and I will catch up in Paris for a few days before flying back to the United States. Several of my former classmates are/will be serving in Africa in the Peace Corps in Niger, Togo, and Rwanda as well as in other destinations like Mongolia. I’ll only have a few weeks back in the United States to catch up with people, and while I’m always ready to make new friends, I want to maintain the ties that I already have. Who’s in your community?

Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland!

Our last two days in Germany went splendidly well. On Friday morning, we were able to ascend to the top of the Reichstag, headquarters of the German Parliament. Not only was entrance free, but since we arrived at 8 am, there was no line (or “queue” in British parlance). We received free audioguides, though far more information was provided on the ascent up the cupola than on the descent. The cone has an opening at the top and acts as a heating/cooling system for the building by funneling air and precipitation into specially-constructed chambers. Later, we went to the Story of Berlin. After spending Thursday engrossed in WWII and occupied Berlin, I appreciated the eight centuries of context the museum provided. We were able to visit a bunker (that was never used) and learn about the crowded and basic living conditions that people would have lived through for up to fourteen days. Friday night, we ate a nice Southeast Asian restaurant in the neighborhood of our hostel and I was able to indulge my love of seafood by ordering shrimp. Saturday was spent souvenir shopping and visiting the Stasi Museum in East Berlin. The Stasi were the state security service in East Germany and monitored the lives of many citizens as portrayed in the film The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen). There were two translations in the entire museum, so my German-English dictionary came in quite handy! I saw some official documents, including a New Year’s one that said, “Best wishes from the Stasi.” On the top floor, the curators had prepared a jail cell to look like the ones that had been used for prisoners of the Stasi. Looking at the spy exhibits showed how far Big Brother technology and public knowledge has advanced – in one birdhouse the Stasi had installed a camera whose lens took up the entire entry. In the age of web- and nanny-cams, most of us would easily be able to spot such an “obvious” camera. Due to high demand for the Berlin-Paris line, only my housemate S and I were able to go back on the Saturday night train since we were leaving on other trips on Monday morning. We all ate dinner at the Hbf (Hauptbahnhof) station – I ordered a currywurst with fries in German!

Ice, Ice Baby

Our time in Berlin has been characterized by cold weather, but today’s tour also focused on the coldness of the human heart. Our first stop of the morning was the DDR Museum along the banks of the Spree River. Inside you can see/touch/listen to lots of memorabilia from the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik in German). We got to see school supplies, work clothes, nudist beach scenes, recreated the ‘Lipsi’ dance, listened to music from the 1970s, and watched a film about planned communities. Then, we walked to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum near our hostel. They had an amazing exhibition of artwork produced by Berliners from 1961-1989 to complement the rich textual explanations. Moreover, the museum displayed artifacts from successful and failed escape attempts including tunnel-digging equipments and a home-made hot air balloon. The museum’s top floor was dedicated to World Religions, Ethics, and the International Struggle for Human Rights. Resistance movements in India, Poland, Hungary, and the United States demonstrated the various guiding principles of nonviolent movements. A quick coffee break later, we headed off to the Topographie des Terrors exhibition on the site of the old SS/Gestapo HQ. It was an open-air exhibition crowded with students so we didn’t stay too long. On the way back to the hostel, we stopped off at the Holocaust Memorial. The site is well-known for its innovative architecture and field of stelae which leaves the visitor to discover his/her own meaning. I found the most touching statements to be those made by children. J’s haunting message to her father: “I shall die soon. I don’t want to die, but they won’t let us live. I’ll never see you again.” Death marches, extermination camps, forced separations, a terrible legacy.

Personally Political – Karneval

Guten Tag! I’m traveling with some of my housemates throughout Germany this week and our first stop was Karneval in Köln (Cologne). On Sunday (Valentine’s Day - Valentinstag), we saw lots of people dressed up in exotic costumes and spent a lot of time eating schnitzels and pretzels and drinking spiked coffee creations in order to keep warm. More of the same am Montag, but with a big parade. While some of the floats were reminiscent of Homecoming Parade projects, several were quite elaborate and expressed some sort of explicit political viewpoint. For example, I saw one with a “Gone with the Wind” poster depicting Chancellor Angela Merkel as a swooning Scarlett O’Hara waiting to be rescued by a predatory politician. The parade section reserved for the zoo’s 150th birthday however was meant to be more light-hearted. Most of the participants were dressed as big cats or flashy fowl, but some of the band members wore large papier-mâché black heads with bones tied into the hair and pictures of savannah landscapes painted on the back. As someone who has studied African and African-American Studies, I felt disappointed that the group organizers had resorted to essentialist images of roaming “savages” to convey their point of peaceful human-animal coexistence. Thankfully, the rest of the parade featured other more creative floats, lots of candy, and cold toes. Einschuldigung (excuse me), but I have a train to catch!

Les Communautés Religieuses

Last weekend, le lendemain after the crêpe party, L and J came up to the mountain to continue training for the Paris marathon. They, E, and I all went on a 16 km jaunt in the forest to see a WWII monument commemorating the resistance fighters killed by the Nazis. Lorraine was conquered by The Third Reich and the people suffered under its control. A pillar rises between two crosses of Lorraine and its inscription reads “Remember passer-by all of the men who gave their lives for your liberty.” A sign close by asked visitors to remember that this was the last site the men had seen before passing on to the next life.
Upon our return to the lycée, J and I talked a bit about the different roles of religion in US and France. For many Americans, going to church is a social as well as spiritual event. Places of worship give people a sense of community and support their devotees through hard times (i.e. preparing meals for family members of the sick, funeral luncheons) and joyous (i.e. well-wishes for weddings and baptisms). By contrast, French churches emphasize quiet reflection on the past, the afterlife, and how one lives one’s life. Parishioners may socialize outside of services but I have yet to see a flyer for a pancake feed, carnival, or silent auction. Furthermore, since the state undertakes charitable works with tax money, private giving to organizations such as Secours Catholique (Catholic Charities) isn’t as widespread here.
My choir is the result of one prêtre’s attempts to develop a stronger faith community in his parish. Not everyone in the choir goes to church or believes in God, but by singing at Masses, we are helping those who do to contemplate their lives. We still get some strange looks from people who would probably prefer Gregorian chants, but we’ve also gotten more interest from youth and other people about what role we can play in the evolving parish identity.

Februar

Sorry about the lack of posting - I´ve been on vacation in Germany with some of my housemates. We´ve been to Karneval in Köln (Cologne), walked along the harbor in Hamburg, and just got done touring a lot of monuments in Berlin. I´m headed back to Nancy on Sunday and will post some of my exciting travel tales and observations. In general, the Germans are very kind and friendly people who are more than willing to help travelers. I´d highly recommend a visit, but the weather has been unusally cold (read as -2 to -5 degrees Celsius). Until then, I´d also like to let everyone know that I´ve been accepted as a Peace Corps Volunteer to serve in Burkina Faso starting this June. May you have some warm people (and weather) in your lives!

Language Shift

My senior thesis was about language shift in French Guyana and I’m still fascinated by the phenomenon on a population scale. Working in this program has given me the chance to observe some language shifts in my own multilingual, multicultural community. For instance, I normally speak English with my Anglophone housemates since it’s a) very convenient and b) efficient for dealing with the tasks of daily life. I still speak French with my German roommate and occasionally try out small greetings phrases en allemand that I’ve picked up from my textbook. My enterprising Nicaraguan roommate A has taken advantage of the fact that most of the English-speakers know some Spanish to use that as her primary language of communication. This represents a shift away from a lingua franca (French), which is a foreign/second language for all interlocutors, to a situation involving a native speaker and several multilinguals. A doesn’t speak English and has a French boyfriend, so she gets plenty of language practice in France. As a result of my conversations with her, I can feel my comprehension improving enormously. There’s usually a few hours of lag time between a conversation and my realization that I can indeed produce a new structure in the language (better at distinguishing between ser/estar, imperfect vs. preterite for gustar, prepositions, etc.). She’s quite willing to work with me and I feel more confident in the language everyday. On a professional level, I speak primarily English with my teacher S (who loves American TV series and mystery novels), primarily French with V (whose English is a bit rusty after working with high-schoolers for awhile), and a 50/50 mix with M (who just speaks in whatever language happens to be passing through her mind at the time). We’ve tried to do some shifting – there was a period of time when I spoke mostly French with S and English with V – but we fell back into familiar patterns after the break. Being multilingual doesn’t necessarily mean one uses all of one’s languages every day and the choice of what language to use in which situations is an important, if often unconscious, decision for much of the world. More specifically, I’ve been reading articles about multilingual education in the US, Canada, Africa, and Asia to see how different communities strike a balance between several languages (home/majority, native/foreign, etc.). Serving in the Peace Corps will give me a better idea about how these ideas vont ensemble (go together).

La Vie Continue

After those fantastic travel narratives, a small post about ma vie quotidienne seems rather quaint, but there honestly hasn’t been too much happening lately. One reason is that I and the other assistants are now settled into our jobs and know what to expect: which classes require extra preparation, which ones you need to guide with a firm hand, which ones the teacher will probably mess up on scheduling and you’ll have to start something from scratch. Another reason is that les vacances d’hiver (February vacation) are fast approaching so people are trying to save their money for that. I’ll be going to Germany with some of my housemates and then to the South of France for some relaxation and sight-seeing. Other assistants are going to Morocco, Sweden, and other far-flung places as our time in France starts drawing to a close.

Last weekend, I met up with some other assistants at a party on Friday. A good time was had by all, but comme d’habitude (as usual) we had to head out before midnight to catch the last bus up the mountain. Saturday was quite pleasant, and on Sunday I had the chance to sing at la Cathédrale de Metz. The diocese had dedicated the mass to raising relief funds for victims of the earthquake in Haiti and to help Haitians in the area (students, families) who had lost loved ones. Our chef de choeur became ill on Saturday and we had some logistical problems, but overall it was an amazing experience. I certainly never expected to be singing a gospel version of Kumbaya in a 13th century cathedral! We’ll be putting on a few more concerts before I leave at the end of April and then it’ll be wedding season – the choir is already booked for three. In general, parishioners seem very happy to welcome us to their churches but still aren’t sure what to do about gospel music. Thankfully, the leaders of the choir have gotten used to explaining the meaning behind the songs in French and how they relate to the readings of the day. At first glance, I thought that French reluctance to embrace the genre was due to demographics: the vast majority of French parishioners are over the age of 50. While the Vatican II reforms helped to keep Catholicism alive in America, most French are proudly secular and so the remaining devout Catholics are quite conservative. Some churches are trying to stimulate more interest from the youth and have requested our presence as a way to show la jeunesse francaise that the Catholic Church needn’t die with their grandparents. A few weeks later I realized that another factor was contributing to the unease: we usually sang one song in English and another in Zulu while the others were in French. I will admit that the legendary French preference for their own language is true, but think about it: how would most US church-goers react if a quarter of the songs were in other languages? Some would be intrigued, but others would probably be less than thrilled.

Moving on, I’ve kept hanging out with some of my new international friends. L, a young woman from Spain and J, a German, are in my conversation class on Tuesday nights. My German colocataire S usually meets friends afterwards and always offers to take us with her. While she and another German assistant discussed their vacation plans, I chatted with L and J about the education systems in their respective countries and how they found life in France. L missed the color and sunshine of her native land, while J wished that service was more reliable here. I wholeheartedly agree on both counts. Furthermore, I’m improving my Spanish by talking with P, a friend of my roommate A from Nicaragua. P is from northern Spain and sometimes her accent is difficult for me to understand, but we usually understand each other. P also speaks English along with French and many other languages so I can substitute a word into a sentence and she translates later.

I received some information requests from the Peace Corps, which means they’re considering my file, and have been trying to keep up with friends swamped with schoolwork. I’ll miss France, but I’m excited to see my friends and family again and to return to warmer weather!

School Daze Update

Things have been going pretty well at my so-called “job.” This position has given me a much better understanding of how much of a high school teacher’s day is taken with meetings, how many class periods can be eaten up by tests or illnesses. When you consider that all of the students have two hours of English per week, one or two missed periods can really throw off the curriculum. While the frequent vacations are nice, they don’t necessarily help the students to retain the information for the bac professionnel in June. I’ve been encountering some resistance, but I’m not personally offended by it. Most of these students aren’t interested in school period, and are quite upset that I insist on speaking English to them (quelle horreur!). I use lots of fun activities to promote conversation, but it’s like herding cats towards a pool. Today, for example, we worked on possibilities and permission (can, can’t, must, mustn’t, could, would, should). I asked them what they’re allowed to do at their own homes, how they would ask a friend’s mother for permission, and to write down 5 new rules for the school. Lots of: “You can smoking” and “You must love the drinking.” They know that my French is far better than their English, so they demand instructions in their native language. I usually refuse and repeat slowly with hand signals, sometimes while looking at a more competent student to help translate for her classmates. Even though they don’t enjoy it, they are learning. Several have had “a-ha” moments when they understand something I say. Back when I was learning French in high school, my amazing teacher used it all the time in the classroom. I didn’t know what every word meant, but as I acquired a better grasp of the language, I was able to recognize directions and objects more easily. Most of the professors here use French as the teaching language: “Vous mettez le ‘you’ avant le verbe” (“You put the ‘you’ before the verb”). That’s fine for basic rules, but it doesn’t help the students to understand spoken English. For the classes that will be going to England, we’ve been creating phrasebooks so they don’t feel so linguistically isolated. I teach them some new things (like how to say “straight ahead” for “tout droit”) and calling up some long-forgotten nouns from earlier grades (“fork” for “fourchette). These classes are a joy to work with: they’re respectful, dynamic, and not afraid to make mistakes. I certainly have a much better idea about what it takes to be a foreign language educator and I’m constantly exploring new ways to make the classroom a more stimulating (while controlled) environment. I’ve promised a few of the classes to do a song translation later in the year if they can agree to get through our scheduled program without too much fuss.

Latin Nights, Las Vegas Lights: Rome Days 2 & 3

Our second day in Rome started early with a metro ride to the Vatican. While Paris has an extensive, efficient metro system, Rome’s has only two lines and locals seem to prefer busses. Our passes allowed us to enter the Vatican Museum without waiting too terribly long and we set about exploring all of the religious artwork. Pre-twentieth century French literature references a LOT of saints and their associated symbols/significations. For example, Saint Sebastian was pierced by arrows and is the patron saint of protection from the bubonic plague, soldiers, athletes, and archers. He was also an early gay icon. Saint Jerome was a big hit with medieval Italian painters and featured throughout. My father tried in vain to follow his pre-planned route but eventually had to give up and follow the crowd heading towards the Sistine Chapel. The museum’s curators had anticipated this and had conveniently placed several of the more popular exhibits (like Ancient Egypt) on the way to the Chapel. After feasting our eyes on centuries of religious art, we were ready to gorge ourselves on the wonders of Michelangelo. It was…underwhelming. Perhaps because the images have been reproduced so often that one no longer feels the need to spend hours gazing at them again, perhaps because it was so crowded one could only crane one’s head up for a moment before one was shoved along. My sister found the secret exit that would lead us to St. Peter’s Basilica and used her charm on the security guard. “Can I use this door?” “St. Peter did!” The Basilica was awesome in scope and we spent quite a bit of time exploring it. My parents also spent quite a lot of time in the gift shop looking for angels, Last Supper scenes, and other gifts for the extended family. On the way home, we dropped by the Pantheon to marvel at its immensity.

Our last full day in Rome and the last day of 2009 started bright and early with a trip to the Coliseum. The warm sunny air was doing wonders for us as individuals and as a family and we took lots of photos in between reading the very informative placards. We strolled up on Palatine Hill, admiring the gorgeous gardens. I also feel at peace in an espace vert no matter where I am and I easily could have whiled away the afternoon in contemplation. Keeping to schedule, however, demanded that we head over to the Roman Forum. Seeing the ruins of old was amazing and I appreciated the city’s ancient history even as I grumbled about parts of its present. Getting back to the hotel was a challenge. The police had shut down certain public transportation stops in order to prepare for a large concert on New Year’s Eve. We took a series of buses to San Giovanni, the Pope’s church. It had a gorgeous interior with soaring ceilings and plaster angels everywhere, more vigilant than Santa Claus. Across the way, we stopped at a small parish which holds the sacred steps. Jesus walked these stairs up to Pontius Pilate’s house in Jerusalem and, as the story goes, Constantine’s mother Helena had them brought to Rome. We elected to see the chapel and read the handout rather than ascend the stairs on our knees in prayer at 5:00 pm. Though we had intended to celebrate, my sister played Sleeping Beauty and my father and I got some take-out sandwiches. Back at the hotel, we watched some pretty crappy ABC Family movies on the English-language channel and poked our heads outside to see the fireworks.

My family left at 4:30 am on New Year’s Day to catch their flight back to America. I explored some more of the city by foot, walking to the river and back. My journey home was filled with shuttle buses and metros, but I made it back to Nancy safe and sound on January 2.

Las Vegas Lights : Paris Day 5 & Rome Day 1

After our little jaunt into Germany, we returned to Nancy, packed up all of our belongings, and hopped on a train to return to Paris. While this was originally scheduled more for flight convenience rather than a need for more sightseeing, the cold weather and jet-lag we encountered the first few days prevented us from seeing everything. After checking in at the hotel, we hopped back on the Métro to see l’Arc de Triomphe. We decided not to do spend lots of money and wait in a terribly long line to reach the top (for THIS attraction – see below), but there were plenty of inscriptions, reliefs, and tombs to see below. The balmy weather lifted our spirits as we strolled down the famous Champs-Élysées. It didn’t quite feel like the Elysian Fields of Greek mythology – we saw lots of McDos and Quick’s interspersed between Mercedes stores and luxury shopping centers. We popped into Starbucks for some cappuccinos before buying some souvenirs. After a quick nap at the hotel, we went out again to see la Tour Eiffel. It looked amazing atop the grassy field, but as we descended the steps from the museums, all we could see was the long lines of people. Since it was the dream of a family member (who shall remain anonymous) to go up in the Eiffel tour, we stood in line for over five hours. Les beaux temps quickly gave way to cold and darkness, yet we held our places. After a quick ride up, we spent roughly 15 minutes on the second level (5 of those were spent trying to warm up in the gift shop). Tired and cold, we stopped at a French café near the hotel. We mistakenly sat in the “bar” area and ordered some drinks before moving over to the restaurant area and eating some delicious sandwiches.

Le lendemain, we got up to take the first metro out to Porte Maillot on the other side of the city. We took the shuttle bus to Beauvais Airport (conveniently located over an hour away from Paris) to catch our RyanAir flight to Rome. Check-in was quite simple, but waiting in the common salle d’attente was an experience. As planes pulled up for boarding, a throng of humanity stampeded towards the appropriate gate. Our flight was 15 minutes late, but we managed to land in Rome five minutes early. Perhaps RyanAir is able to subsidize its time-saving maneuvers with proceeds from its in-flight sales: smokeless cigarettes, various liquors, perfume for the gentleman who realized that he didn’t bring his wife anything back from Paris. Campino Airport isn’t bigger than Beauvais and we took another bus into Rome after forking over more money for tourist passes. If Paris looked like glittering New York, Rome resembled a seedy Vegas which reveled in its lusty past. The humid air weighed on us as we trudged to our hotel (thankfully located only a few blocks away from the main metro station). After a quick check-in to our single room (queen bed for the ‘rents, twin bed for me, made-up couch for sister), we went to lunch at a pizzeria. Latin countries like France, Spain, and Italy are known more for their sites than for their service and Rome was no exception. The National Museum had a great collection of sculptures and mosaics, but part of the fun was watching foreign tourists try to touch the naked statues and set off the alarms. That night, we went on a walking tour suggested by Rick Steves which was also marked by numerous signs. This meant that a) one could easily follow the path and b) everyone did. My favorite sights were the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish steps – the churches were beautiful but not particularly unique. On the next edition of Traveling A La Française: Rome Days 2 and 3.

More Than This Provincial Life: Nancy Days 3 & 4

Christmas passed quite uneventfully in Nancy. Like most of the Christian-influenced West, there really wasn’t much open. We hung out, watched a few episodes of the Tudors, had some discussions, and ate spaghetti for dinner. We did go out to see some of the town sights: the Place Stanislas (declared the Most Beautiful Place in Europe – place meaning “square”) due to its ornate fountains and gold everywhere and the adjoining Parc de la Pepinière. My family enjoyed the gardens, but LOVED the little zoo. There’s a sad chimpanzee who’s been living alone for over 30 years who perks up for all of his visitors, but the real stars were a family of monkeys huddling together in the cold on their rock exhibit. The ever-so-spacious “mixed outdoor” enclosure included deer and African cranes.

Le lendemain, we went to Trier, Germany (known as Trèves in French). Not only is it close by, it’s also the hometown of my German colocataire S so I knew that there would be some interesting things to do/see. Getting there was pretty simple – train from Nancy to Luxembourg, then connection from Luxembourg to Trier. Three countries in under 2 hours! My family was impressed a) by how much English German people spoke as opposed to the French b) the gorgeous cathedral and c) the delicious hearty food. Trier is the oldest city in Germany and has some Roman ruins lying about, such as the Porta Nigra (Black Door). The cathedral is huge in scale and includes a courtyard, a cellar with some reliquaries, and a sacred tunic worn by Jesus and brought to Trier by Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. To escape the cold, we ate a delicious Weinstub with multilingual menus and friendly staff. I had some dumplings stuffed with meat and we all watched as my sister made her own lemonade at the table. In Luxembourg, we stopped at McDo for a café before heading back. Next up: Paris Day 5 and Rome!

More Than This Provincial Life: Nancy Days 1& 2

Our next stop was my lovely home base in France, Nancy. We woke up at 6:30 in order to check out of hotel and catch metro to the Gare de l’Est for our 9 am departure time. During the hour and a half train ride, I studied some German and took a nice nap. Paris may be more exciting, but I find Nancy to be eminently more livable. My family bought transportation passes at the gare and I discovered that the apartments where we would be staying were on the tram line. This meant more frequent service with shorter rides – score! After check-in, we returned to the city center to lunch at Flunch. It’s a cafeteria-style dining experience but with the French definition of “fast food” – made-to-order steaks are delicious, but waiting 15 minutes for them with a tray of hot food is slightly annoying. At the attached mall, we bought train tickets to the city of Trier, Germany on Sunday. Since it’s part of a Euroregion (Saar-Lor-Lux), we were able to get cheap weekend tickets designed to promote regional tourism. Spending hours trying things on isn’t as common in France – if you go into a store, you probably know what you’re looking for and can make a quick decision. While family members took naps, I went back to the lycée to clean things up and have some alone time. My family caught up on the Tudors while I caught up on YouTube videos and Internet chats.

We had a quiet Christmas Eve, spent hanging out in the hotel room. In the afternoon, we wandered downtown to meet my very lively conversation leader at his art gallery. I was the first one of my classmates to franchir le seuil (cross the threshold) and was surprised at what a wide variety of objects he had accumulated. Upon hearing that my sister is studying business, he jokingly asked her to draw up a business plan for him. His English was OK, but broke down after 20 minutes. This is understandable – when you only use a language to order food and ask directions, you aren’t use to speaking it fluidly and confidently. Then, I gave my family the tour of my living quarters and we spent about 20 minutes talking in the TV room before heading across the street to Christmas Eve mass. My choir was there and I was able to join in the last-minute rehearsal (I had missed the previous one due to travel) and sang in the choir. As can be expected, Catholic Christmas Eve services are much the same everywhere and the priest talked about how being with family is the most important thing. Some kids put on a play about the rewards of being nice to your neighbors, which explained why the church was packed with their adoring parents and grandparents. A bus trip home and some soup later, we were ready for bed.

Land of Lights, Lovers, and Lines: Paris Days 3 & 4

This was not to be intended to be a relaxing vacation to get away from it all, but rather a sight-seeing trip. To that end, we woke up at 7:00 am to get to the Louvre by 8:00 am. Once there, my parents were determined to follow a walking tour podcast they had downloaded. Unfortunately, some time had passed since the recording and it proved to be of little use in the overwhelming museum. We passed through several rooms of Classical and Italian art – the Mona Lisa looks FAR smaller in real life, especially when one considers that she faces a giant wall-size tapestry. The others were tired after the Egypt exhibition so I explored the Africa, Oceania, and Americas collections by myself. We ate a quick lunch at the attached mall and took the métro back to the hotel. My sister and father weren’t feeling to well and slept the rest of the day. There were some interesting issues with the hotel rooms – heating issues (someone had fiddled with the settings on the heater) and a strange smell emanating from the bathroom (room change within 15 minutes). That night, my mother and I tried to find some dinner in the area. The charming restaurant/bar didn’t serve stand-alone meals (though their window read “à emporter” take-away) so we went to an OK Chinese place. On the way back, we picked up dessert and breakfast at a nearby café.

With everyone feeling better, we all caught a quick, early, quiet RER train to Versailles. The chateau wasn’t terribly well presented – we should’ve sprung for audioguides and done it before, not after the immense Louvre. Moreover, to fully experience the grounds of Versailles, one needs to see the gardens and the Domaine de Marie Antoinette. We didn’t make the hike across the acres of sculpted nature to find the charming pavilions because it was VERY chilly that day. After an RER ride back to Paris, we went to Les Invalides, a complex which combines the Army Museum and Napoleon’s Tomb. It was surprisingly more engaging than I’d imagined with really great exhibitions on WWI and WWII. I found the inscriptions to be more fascinating than the tomb, but to each his/her own. We hopped off the métro at the Gare de l’Est to buy sandwiches and pastries. Lo and behold, my family started to realize that their “helpful suggestions” were just stressing me out and that if they indicated their preferences before I started ordering, the transaction went far more smoothly. A few Tudors episodes provided a nice end to our last day in Paris before going to Nancy.

Happy Trails!

Much like when speaking a foreign language, I often derive greater joy from the rewards of running than from the act itself. I can make numerous mistakes (wrong conjugations, poor breathing rhythm), which leads to problems (misunderstandings, feeling winded) that don’t necessarily prevent me from reaching my ultimate goal (having a conversation, jogging 5 km). Running is a purification ritual for me: it relieves stress, jumpstarts my circulation, and helps me sweat out any bad energy. Furthermore, my after-run shower provides yet another cleansing experience. Running has also made me more aware of my body: its functions, its impulses, how/when to satisfy them. Students and scholars aren’t “brains on sticks” and literary analysis often demands that they make inferences based on normal functions. For example, in one of my French courses, an observant student noticed that the poem referenced “cold tears” instead of the warm sensation one normally feels when crying. Going forward a level, I’m currently reading L’enfant noir by Camara Laye. The author’s sensory descriptions of his childhood homes, family members, and cuisine add another layer of richness to a great story. To extend this argument further, my own interests have shifted more to studies of race and gender. These intellectual constructions have strong, unstable relations to the corps physique. It’s while running that I often see the connections between facts and experiences – may you find some inspiration of your own today.

Land of Lights, Lovers, and Lines: Paris Days 1 & 2

One chilly morning in late December, I logged onto my Gmail to discover that my family’s flight had been delayed but that they wanted me to go to Paris anyway to keep hotel rooms for our reservation special. The train had a slight delay, but was pretty pleasant. Once at the station, I hopped onto the métro and found my way to the hotel without a problem. A quick nap and a kebab later, I was ready to see more of the city. Knowing that Le Musée de Cluny wouldn’t appeal to other family members, I went there by myself and took advantage of their free entry day. I had taken a course in French medieval history at my university and was excited to take pictures of St. Barbe (she of the mal-mariées signing for a chevalier to rescue them), Lady with the Unicorn tapestries (the monkey is key to understanding it all), and the lovely fragments that characterize so much of medieval history. On the way back, I got off at the Opéra Bastille stop, walked around for a bit, grabbed a salad and a beer and headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, the wireless internet wouldn’t work with my laptop and I spent some time at an Internet café.

Sunday morning, I woke up bright and early to fetch my family at Charles DeGaulle airport. I arrived 30 minutes after they did and helped them buy our museum passes (VERY useful). We took the RER (Réseau express regional) back to Paris, where my family experienced their first ride en métro to the hotel. After check-in, we went to see the Deportation Memorial and the difference in French fluency was quite noticeable as there were no English explanations. Next, we blazed through Notre Dame without stopping to buy a candle and the towers closed due to snow. Then, we traipsed over to the Centre Pompidou, the innovative modern art museum. My family was a little weirded out by 4th floor conceptual, but I really enjoyed a lot of the 5th floor (Matisse, furniture). On the way back, we stopped at Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre – a very moving experience with silence and prayer service. I became quite frustrated at my family’s inability to realize that a) I hardly ever translate in day-to-day life and b) I can’t practice this skill when one of them is hovering over me while a service person is trying to give me instructions. Back at the hotel, I watched an episode of the Tudors while my family collapsed. Look forward to an update per day of the trip!

It Won't Cost Much, Just Your Voice!

My concert’s choir took place the week after my visit to Strasbourg and the day before I was to meet my family in Paris. I was quite nervous as we had an entire day devoted to choreography to accompany all of the songs. Singing had been enough of a challenge for me – now I had to do dance moves and smile as well?! Thankfully, the bass section is usually the support and I was able to perform decently in the dress rehearsal which lasted until 1:00 am. I didn’t understand the French system for arranging rides, which resulted in a desperate plea sent at 3:30 pm for a 6:00 pm departure. D and her husband came through for myself, V (the teacher with whom I work), and E, a very nice French student who was embarrassed about her English skills. The concert went quite well – I made some mistakes, but kept smiling and didn’t disrupt the harmony of the choir. Afterwards, my choir director M gave me a big high five and said that she was proud of me for giving my all. M is quite demanding, so her unexpected compliment was a nice surprise. The perfectionist in me holds back all too often, but one of the things I enjoy most about singing is that it’s NOT my day job and it doesn’t have to be perfect all of the time. That’s all for now, but stay tuned for more updates!

Je Recommence

Bonne année (Happy New Year!) Sorry for the blogging silence recently. I could make up some excuses about being busy with the choir and preparing for my family to visit, but mostly I just wasn’t in a blogging “mood.” However, I have returned and have many interesting details to share. I’ll start by filling everyone in on my wonderful weekend in Strasbourg with G and the choir concert. Expect more posts related to the Great Destination Vacation of 2009!
The last weekend before break, I headed off to reconnect with my college friend G in the local metropolis of Strasbourg. Our regions are always linked together as “Alsace-Lorraine,” but Alsace is definitely flashier (and more expensive) than quiet Lorraine. I arrived on Friday night and G was able to find me at the gare thanks to my height. She lives with C, a very charming French pharmacy student who made me feel right at home and also helped me to practice my French. After a lovely dinner and some drinks, we went to a party thrown by one of the other English assistants in Strasbourg. Listening to French music, surrounded by Colombian assistants, and drinking German beer was a fun and multicultural experience.
Le lendemain (the next day), we went to look at a piano for G and yours truly was able to move it. Though I’ve worked with mechanical systems before, they are still slightly confusing to me and I was thankful that the “assembly required” consisted of a few screws. Seeing the look on G’s face when I helped her assemble her new piano was priceless – she was so excited to be able to play music at home again! Then, she played host and led me around to the cathedral and Petite France, a charming section of town with a marché de Noël and quaint shops. I watched her play piano with her local orchestra, which provided a nice example of another musical ensemble besides my own choir. After some coffee and rest back at the house, we headed out for a night with her friend B and other French étudiants (college students) who showed me a great time at their favorite local spots.