End/Beginning?

Dear faithful blog followers,

I'm afraid I have to bring this blog to a close. I'm sorry it's taken me so long since my return to write this post (well I guess it hasn't been that long...about a week now). I am slowly readjusting to life in the United States, but France is missing dearly to me. I miss my friends, my host family, and not having to drive anywhere. I also miss galettes. But that goes without saying. Haha. Fortunately while my mom was here, my host mom taught me how to make them. I failed miserably, and all in all it was a pretty hilarious evening. She gave me the little tool thing I need to make them as well as some of the flour I'll need, so now I just have to practice.

I will give you a few highlights of my mom's visit. I met her at the airport in Paris, and thank goodness I did...I'm not sure her jet-lagged non-French-speaking self could have made it past the train station without me. In fact I was the leader and almost always in charge during the trip, which I think is very funny. She was a pretty good sport about it though, most of the time.

We did a lot of lovely things in Paris, including some things that I had intended to do all of the other times I'd been but never got to do, like go to Versailles. It is completely absurd and definitely worth the visit. Also while we were in Paris I took advantage of my E.U. status for the last time and got in free to just about everything. Love that.

The weather was completely perfect during the whole trip, which totally blows my mind because that is so uncharacteristic of France. Well, I'm certainly not complaining.

After a few days in Paris, we headed off on a train to Nice. It was a long train ride, but the train went along the southern coast, which is absurdly beautiful. I hadn't even gotten off the train and I was already scheming about how I could possibly live there someday. Nice was really great...you can definitely tell that it's Italy's next-door neighbor. We ate a lot of great Italian food, including at this restaurant we happened upon on the harbor that turned out to be a vegetarian restaurant (in France!?!??) with a surprise menu. That meal turned out to be 5 courses, each one unbelievably delicious. We just cracked up every time they brought us more food, because we had no idea when it was going to end. Finally, stuffed to the brim, I asked our waiter if we could share the desert, and his response was "no! of course not!"

Then we headed back up to Rennes to meet my host family. I'm not sure how it was for my mom, because I often forgot to translate, but I think she had a good time nonetheless. My host family was very generous and wanted to make sure her experience was a good one. The next day my host mom drove us and Eric to Mont Saint Michel and Saint-Malo. That evening I had my last dinner with them, and the whole family came over. Ahh it was hard to say goodbye. Except they all said "à bientôt" instead of goodbye. Thank goodness for that.

We spend the next day strolling around Rennes. It was very strange without all of my friends there, but we had a nice day. And then we headed back to Paris, where we struggled to get all of our luggage through the metro (horrible idea...never do that). Four different strangers helped us get things up and down stairs and through gates. My impression of Parisians was totally altered at the last minute. Turns out they are pretty nice folk who are willing to lend a hand. Very fashionable, nice folk. Hehe.

Leaving France was awful, but I know I'll be back. Nothing felt permanent as I was leaving...catching a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower for the last time at sunrise the morning I left didn't really feel like a goodbye.

I miss a lot of things about France, but most of all the language. When I landed in the United States, I definitely accidentally spoke French to an airport employee. Oops. I am going to have to search out francophones in Charleston this summer. Either that or my poor brother is going to receive the brunt of my language frustration (of which he will understand about 50%).

Thank you for sticking with me on this journey! I still have lots to say and plenty of stories to tell, so if you are interested, feel free to come find me, give me a phone call, shoot me an email. All I ask is please don't pose the question "How was France?" I will reply with "Do you have 6 hours and a lot of coffee?"

Now I will be like the French and say à bientôt!

<3 becca

Summer...?

Well, this is it. The next time you hear from me, I will be back in the States. I feel so weird about this. Leaving, that is. Friday morning (the day after tomorrow) I am leaving Rennes to meet my mom in Paris, and then we are going to travel for a week in Paris, Nice, Rennes, Saint Malo, etc. It's going to be really great. I just can't really handle leaving Rennes and all of my friends here. I adore the people in my program, and we live in every corner of the United States, so it's going to be hard to see some of them. My whole concept of distance has sort of disappeared since I've been in Europe though. Hopping on a plane to Seattle doesn't really seem like that big of a deal to me anymore. I'm sure being back in the U.S. will be a wake-up call though. Part of me says that I'm going back to real life, that life in France isn't real. But when I think about it, my life is in France right now. But leaving doesn't feel permanent at all. As I left campus for the last time this afternoon, I had the weirdest feeling that I would be back here. So au revoir, Rennes. A plus....

I'll be back to tell you about my "reverse culture shock" experiences. Hehe.

Les Chateaux de la Loire

This past weekend, we went on an excursion to the Loire Valley to see the chateaux. We saw four in total: Brissac, Villandry, Chenonceau, and Amboise. We saw the first two on Saturday and spent the night in Tours. I wish we could have spent some more time in Tours because it seemed like a really cool city. There's a museum of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions there, which would be so awesome. Someday I'll go back.

The chateaux were cool...they were all very ornate, very ridiculous, and very French. The gardens, too. You know what the gardens in Versailles look like...well that is what gardens à la française are like. Last week, my art history professor was talking about how she doesn't like gardens like that because it is silly to try to tame nature in that way. And also you're not allowed to walk on the grass in France. I agree with her. They're still pretty epic though.

The last chateau we went to, Amboise, was in a little village on the Loire where Leonardo da Vinci spent the last part of his life, and he is buried there. And we saw his house, also. Apparently when he was 64, he rode a horse from Milan to Amboise, which is in like middle-northern France.

Things are winding down here. I'm now finished with four of my classes...four more to go. My friend Haley's 21st birthday is tomorrow, so hopefully we will do something exciting. I know things are going to start moving very fast, but I'm all antsy right now because everything is so strange and transition-y. Incidentally, I am turning 21 next Tuesday, and my host family is throwing me a mega-teuf on Sunday night. It is going to be the most hilarious birthday party I have ever had.

Where has the time gone?

Well, it's getting to be that time. The time when I start to feel weird about leaving. I only have two more weeks in Rennes, which I just can't even believe. There are so many things I still want to do here, and my stupid classes are inhibiting me from doing them. Because it's starting to be exam time, and all of my professors are realizing that we don't have any grades, so they have all decided to give us as many things to do as possible. This would be normal for finals time in the U.S. except that here I have SEVEN classes instead of four. Super.
But the weather hasn't been nice lately, so it's not as painful to sit in my room and study. It's May and I've had to turn the heat back on in my room. What in the world, France? Also, apparently it hails here all the time during the spring.

But things are good, for the most part. For a while I thought I had mono, and there was a big hullabaloo, but I got tested and I don't. So that's good. This weekend I'm going on an excursion with my group the the Loire valley to see the chateaux. I'm really excited! We are going to sleep in a castle. It's going to be great.

Oh, I haven't mentioned that there is a new guy living with us. He's from the Congo, he's 17, super nice, rather shy and in culture shock (he has only been in France for like 3 weeks). I think he's glad that there's another foreigner around who doesn't always know what's going on. Hehe.

I'm not sure what's going to happen when I go back to the States. I'm trying not to think about it. Yeah, there are a lot of things/people I miss a lot, but it is going to be so strange to leave France. I walk down the street and see all of the people with baguettes tucked under their arms, the perfectly trimmed trees, the cobblestone streets, the medieval houses, the carousels, bakeries on every corner...
And what am I going to do when I can't just hop on the metro to go to school or walk to the middle of town? When I won't be able to go entire days without hearing a word of English?

I guess I'd better just seize the day and take advantage of the last bit of time I have left. My mom is coming at the end, and we are going to do a bit of traveling in France together. It's going to be great! I have a lot to look forward to yet.

Barcelona (continued)

Barcelona

More Pictures (Greece still)

Pictures

Blogger only lets me upload 5 at a time. Be patient with me here. More on the way!

Many adventures later...

Well, I am back, and I've been putting off updating this blog because the idea of it is kind of overwhelming. I just have so much to say. I'll see what I can do.

My adventures began in Barcelona, which is an incredible city. I fell completely in love with it. I found the culture there to be much more open than what I've experienced in France. I think it might have something to do with the weather, honestly. Southern cultures nearly always have the reputation of being more open and welcoming than northern cultures. Little bit of sunshine never hurt anyone.
I stayed in a really awesome youth hostel that was small and very community-oriented. There was a communal kitchen, so we did some cooking while we were there to save money. And everyone was always hanging out in the living room, and there was a rooftop terrace that overlooked the city and the mountains. I don't know whoever thought of youth hostels, but they are the best idea ever. A cheap, safe place to stay that is in the middle of the city or at least close to public transportation where you can meet people from all over the world. It's just great.
I made a list of things we did in Barcelona that were amazing, so if you're ever going there, I'll give it to you. And of course there are the small things that I will never forget...eating olives and drinking wine on the rooftop, wandering through the Gothic quarter, basking in the sun by the Mediterranean, happening upon a symphony orchestra playing in front of a cathedral with people doing a folk dance in the square...
My camera got stolen at the Picasso museum, so sadly I have no pictures of my own of this entire trip. I will borrow some from friends and put a few up here soon. You know, life.

After 6 days in Barcelona, I continued onward alone to Greece. I had a completely ridiculous day of travel from Barcelona to Athens (that's discount airlines for you...speaking of discount airlines, it appears to be a custom in many parts of Europe to applaud when the plane lands. When we landed in Barcelona, everyone on the plane clapped and went "Ole!"), and after all I finally made it. I met up with my friend, Madeleine, who is studying there. We poked around Athens a bit, and the next night we took a midnight ferry to Santorini. I don't even know if I can describe Santorini...it's so incredibly beautiful that I doubt its existence. We stayed in a little villa in Fira that was absurdly cheap and great, and we rented a car for the day so it would be easy to get around. and the first day we went to Kamari, one of the black beaches, and took a picnic of olives, feta cheese, bread, and sesame sweet things. It was so great...there were hardly any people, and the weather was perfect. The sand was awfully hot though. Needless to say. Then we drove to Oia. Oia is also indescribable, incidentally. We went to Ammoudi bay for a swim, but I didn't make it in past my ankles...it was freezing! It was beautiful and really nice nonetheless. We then hiked up to the top of Oia (a billion stairs) and back down to eat dinner at a taverna on the water and watch the sunset. Our waiter brought us some local wine for free and conveniently forgot to put some of the things we'd ordered on the bill. I guess he must have thought one of us was cute, but peu importe. The Greeks are so friendly. The next day, we wandered around Fira a bit, then took a boat to a volcano, hiked around the volcano, then swam in the hot springs. We had to swim through cold water to get to them, and they weren't exactly hot, but it was an experience for sure. Annnnnd then I rode a donkey back up the mountain. Yep.
When we were about to leave Santorini, I found out that my flight to Milan had been canceled because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland. I had no choice but to stay in Greece until things cleared up, which turned out to be four days later. Madeleine and all of her flat-mates were leaving on a week-long field trip in northern Greece, but she said I could stay in her apartment if I kept it on the down-low. They aren't technically allowed to have guests, but she figured my circumstances were a pretty good reason for breaking the rules. The next day I wandered alone around the Acropolis and explored Athens a bit. When I came back to the apartment, there was a note saying that if I didn't leave immediately, they would change the locks. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, an angry Greek woman barged in and told me I had to leave within the hour. I scrambled to find a hostel, miraculously found one, and went on my way. Heartless people. Oh well. It turned out to be alright in the end. I met several other people who'd been stranded by the volcano, and we bonded. On my last morning in Greece, I hiked up to the highest point in Athens with two people I met from Montreal. And after some more travel ridiculousness, I made it back to France. I wanted to applaud and cheer when the plane landed in Paris. It had been such an ordeal getting back.

So that is definitely a brief account, but more stories will come out when you talk to me about it. Also, pictures will come soon.

Vacances!

Tomorrow morning I am leaving on a crazy spring break adventure until the 25th, so needless to say, you won't be hearing from me for a while.

ciao!

C'est La Fête

Well, I had a great weekend. Meredith came into town on Friday evening, and we ate galettes and caught up a bit. On Saturday we walked to the market and bought some bread, goat cheese, and fruit, and ate it in the park. It was sunny out! I couldn't believe it. I told Meredith she must have brought the Italian sun with her. We walked around a bit, went to my favorite yarn store, drank hot chocolate in my usual cafe, etc. I had invited some friends to come over for dinner because my host parents weren't going to be there, and they didn't mind if I had a few people over. My friends got there before my host parents left, and my host mom must have thought we were all very cute, and she brought out champagne and sat and talked with us for a while, which was really lovely and adorable. And I cooked a meal for everyone, which was really great because I do that a lot when I'm home, and I hadn't done it since being in France. The next day was Easter, and Meredith and I got up and took a bus to a tiny medieval town about 45 minutes away where there is literally nothing but bookstores. The town, Becherel, has about 1,200 inhabitants and like 18 bookstores. It's fantastic. They were having a book festival, so there were tons of people there, and even more books than usual. When we were on the bus, we were sitting right behind the bus driver, and I overheard a conversation between him and another woman. When we got to Becherel, he asked if there was a protest happening. The woman said no, that there was a book party happening. He asked, "what does one do at a book party?" and she answered, "you party...with books." And another woman chimed in, "yeah, it's better than just reading because you're not by yourself!"
When we came back to Rennes, my host family was busy preparing for the big Easter dinner/soiree they were having. The whole family came over, plus some friends, plus Meredith, Scottie, and myself. The whole evening was pretty hilarious. By now I've gotten used to the five-hour French meal, but it's still sort of a riot, especially when you're a foreigner. Adding to the hilarity was the fact that Meredith does not speak a word of French. Basically there was a lot of translation happening, as well as drunken attempts to communicate in English with us. We ate fondue and had crème brulée for dessert (which I watched my host mom make, so maybe I'll be able to attempt it one of these days). Fondue is so fun...it's like being allowed to play with your food. Food for people who get bored easily at the dinner table. It was supposed to be a musical soiree, so Scottie and I sang some songs, but everyone else who was going to play decided that they were too shy or they "forgot" their guitar. Boo. Except Antoine, near the end, asked us if we knew the song "Wonderwall" and that resulted in an all-inclusive sing-a-long. Hilarious.

Just now I had an interesting conversation with my host mom at the dinner table. I am inspiring her, somehow. I don't really know. She has started knitting a sweater for Loann, her grandson, because she saw me knitting one day and remembered that she liked to do it. And now she wants to bake more because I'm always baking (she doesn't even know...I don't bake half as much here as I do at home). Anyway, she said that I (and my other American friends here) have given her a new idea of what Americans are like. I guess she always thought we are all sort of boring and don't care about anything and just sit in front of the television and eat cheetos all day. But my lifestyle is nothing like that, and I bake and knit and sing songs all the time. I assured her that I'm not exactly normal, but Americans can be interesting people too, you know. At which point my host dad chimed in to remind her that there are "a lot of states" in America. Hehe. But it's true, the U.S. is completely enormous compared to France. In any case, I'm glad that I've won points for America in her eyes.

Reflections

Alright, so France isn't perfect. My mom read my last entry and remarked that the honeymoon is over. Well, the honeymoon was over a long time ago, but sometimes it comes back on sunny days when I feel competent with my language skills and really feel like I'm accomplishing something here. It really depends. My last entry touches on what is really THE thing that bothers me about France. The main thing. My diet is also lacking in vegetables and really anything that isn't bread or cheese, but that's another story.

Today I succeeded in getting my hair cut in France. I think I can say that is an accomplishment. Also, I feel like I look very French now. My host mom thought it was very funny that I wanted to get my hair cut in France. It wasn't necessarily that so much as I didn't really want to wait until I got back to the States because it was getting much too long. But anyway. Minus ten inches of hair and feeling good.

I realized earlier today that I forgot to write about the sign language workshop I went to. I went to this "introduction to sign language" (French sign language, mind you) workshop at La Vie Enchantiee, the co-op. They were playing this game called The Village, which I play with my friends at school all the time, so it was really funny to find out that it is universal and can also be played in sign language. Unfortunately, the only thing I remember how to say in French sign language is loup-garou, or werewolf. Hehe.

My dear friend Meredith is coming to visit this weekend from Italy. I am so excited! We are going to do a lot of French things, and I am going to do a lot of translating, which I think will be funny. On Sunday night the whole family is coming over for a musical soiree, kind of like an open mic night at my house, and my host mom is making fondue and crème brûlée, which will just be fantastic. Also, my host mom said she's going to hide Easter eggs all around the house, which I think is pretty funny too, especially since there aren't any kids around except Loann who is three months old. Apparently Easter egg hunts have no age limit.

So here's the thing, France

I've been lagging in my blog posts, so this might be a long one. I just cleaned my room, which felt GREAT. You would think that with as little stuff as I brought with me, it wouldn't really be possible for all of it to create a massive clutter in my bedroom. Wrong! Apparently I am capable of that, even with one suitcase's worth of stuff.

So last weekend I went to the southern coast of Bretagne with my host parents and some of their friends. That basically consisted of three days of zero English, tons of food, and tons of wine. We were in Quiberon, which you should look up on a map because it's pretty funny. It's just barely hanging off the edge of France. It's called a presque'isle, or an almost-island.
The weekend, which was mostly spent having like five-hour meals, created many interesting conversations. One of which was me trying to explain why I'm a vegetarian. FAIL. Not only did they not get it, but they very strongly disagreed with me. Oh well. So much for that. Culture clash, I guess.

Another interesting conversation I had with them was about being a woman in France.
Let's just talk about this for a minute. It's been on my mind because I have recently had many a conversation about my other fellow American women who are here in France, and we all have had the same experience here. Honestly, it is hard to be a woman in France. For one thing, women have a defined role here...it is not unusual, in fact I would say that it is common, for women to have all cleaning/cooking/child-raising responsibilities in a household. For example, when we were at the beach house last weekend, there were two women, plus me, and three men. The women literally did EVERYTHING (cooking, cleaning, dishes, etc.) and the men did NOTHING except sit around and drink whiskey. It was completely absurd. But also, I realize, part of the culture here.
Another thing about being a woman here: French men are awful, disrespectful, abusive pigs. There, I said it. Now I will say that that is a huge generalization. But the truth is, I have been accosted by strange men many times since I've been here. And so has every other girl I've talked to. I've come to expect it, because it happens to me virtually every time I go out. Sometimes it's fairly harmless...some guy trying to talk to me or asking me if I'm lost. But other times it is outright harassment. And no one here does anything about it. Whereas, in the U.S., if a man was harassing a girl that way, you could call the police on him, no problem. If I called the cops because of a guy doing that here, they would probably just laugh at me.
Don't worry, I have learned what to do/say when they approach me to get rid of them. And I know where not to go at night, etc. But I'm really sick of it. They shouldn't be able to get away with that! Ughhhhhh!!!
In addition to all of that, in daily life, there is also the fact that women are not very present in politics, nor in the professional world. And in France, women didn't have the right to vote until 1944!
So all of you American women out there, you've got it pretty good. Just remember that women in other places in the world are not as free as you are. Take advantage of that freedom.

Very old rocks

Well, I definitely jinxed our excursion in my last entry. Of course it was cold, windy, and wet on our excursion yesterday. Oh well. I should know to expect that from Bretagne.
It was fun anyway. Sort of. I mean, it was interesting. Sort of. First we went to Carnac to see the monoliths. It's like Stonehenge except older and in France. I didn't know they were older than Stonehenge...that is just crazy. And they really don't have any idea why they are there, whereas with Stonehenge they at least know that it has something to do with marking the sun's position (like a calendar, I think). But when it comes down to it, they are really just a bunch of very old rocks. So, I'm glad I saw them, but I think 10 minutes in a field of them would have been more than enough.

After that we went to Vannes, which is actually a town instead of just countryside. It's a little coastal medieval city, very charming, full of old buildings and traditions. I was talking to Daniel during lunch (galette with goat cheese...probably one of my favorite things ever) and he told me that you really have to go outside of Rennes to get a feel for the real Bretagne, the region. It's true...Rennes is sort of a metropolis, and though there are definitely parts of it that are celtic and medieval and super Breton, not all of it is like that. Vannes, however, appears to be a truly Breton city. Nearly every building dates to like the 4th century or something. Craziness. While we were there, we saw a group of guys dressed in completely ridiculous outfits (as in, two were dressed like leprechauns and several were dressed in drag) and one of them ran up to me, Scottie, and Natalie and was like "wait, you're walking too fast, I just need one kiss, please" and kissed each of us on the cheek, and then ran off. That is the second time I've seen a group of young guys dressed like that and doing silly things in the middle of the day, and I've decided that it's the French version of a bachelor party. So silly.
Last night, a few of us went out to celebrate Brice's birthday. Scottie and I had knitted him things and made cookies, and his reaction was more or less speechlessness, which was very cute. Brice and Yoann have been really great to us (reminder: they are two of the French students who are helpers with the program), and it's been great to have French people to hang out with all the time. We went to this pizzeria for dinner, and I found out that in France, you don't take home leftovers if you aren't able to eat all of your food at a restaurant. As in, if I asked if I could take home half a pizza, they would think I was a freak. Isn't that so weird? I think that is just bizarre. At one point last night, we played telephone (remember that game?) alternating in French and English, and it left us in stitches. It was really hilarious. You should really try it sometime with people whose language you don't speak very well. Hehe.