La fin du chemin français (pour maintenant): Partie 1

Well, I’ve really dropped the ball on this last French post…sorry everyone. I still wanted to recap the last of my adventures and reflect on my whole experience this past year, because it is one I will never forget with people who made every second away from home not just bearable, but better in every way than I could have hoped.

I left you in Aix with a week left to go in Europe. That Friday was the APA group fin de l’année dinner where we all got dressed up and got together for one last meal à la français while watching the slideshow our advisers put together. It was great to see everyone all together, since so many of us had divided into smaller groups based on our traveling schedules or classes. It was even more bizarre to realize I hadn’t even met everyone in the group! Part of me is worried that I missed out on opportunities to meet people, but I can’t imagine spending my time with anyone other than the girls with whom I became such good friends.

At the end of the night, Emily, Roz, and Caitlin came back with Carly and I to hang out as a group one last time. Unfortunately, I had to pack for my trip to Paris the following morning to meet my extended family, so I didn’t hang out so much as run around frantically marking things off my list.

The following morning, I caught the train up to Paris and met my family just outside of Paris in what I guess you would call the suburbs of the city. Quick family note: my grandfather was French and migrated to the US after World War II, but his sister stayed in France where she started her family just as my grandpa did stateside. Having this personal connection is a large part of what motivated my French studies and made me want to go to France. The relatives I stayed with are technically my second- and third-cousins. I’d been to their home once before when I was fourteen and spent three weeks of the summer with them. The family sends and receives each other’s kids for a bit of time over the summer to help expose the other half to a new culture and practice their language skills. But I digress.

It had been years since I’d seen my French family, they were so welcoming to me, and it was so great to see them. Especially in France while speaking French! And understanding it! I went into the city to do some shopping with two of my cousins, Anne-Zoé and Alix, and eventually Alix and I split off to meet up with her friends. We picked up a few bottles of rosé and headed to the Seine where she and her friends talked and bickered over incredibly similar things as my American friends and I do: what other friends are up to, movies and television, politics (this was just before Hollande was elected!), etc. I didn’t catch entire conversations, but I was glad to generally keep up! After drinks, Alix and I went to her boyfriend’s house where he and another couple of friends were making dinner. We spent the night talking, drinking, and listening to music, and I was again comforted by the familiarity of simply spending a night having dinner with friends.

Alix and I woke up the next morning and went back to her parents’ house where the rest of the family was gathering for a big brunch. Some of the second-cousins (who are really more like aunts and uncles, since they’re my grandpa’s sister’s kids and the same ages as my aunts and uncles here) I had met on my previous trip, and it was entertaining to meet them again seven years later, more grown up and with a much better grasp on their language! I had a similar reaction to meeting my then-four-now-eleven and then-seven-now-fourteen year old third-cousins, but I was able to communicate and take part in the conversation.

It also made me miss home so incredibly much, not only because they were asking and were interested in how this side of the family is doing, but they also assured me of how proud my grandpa would be of me. He passed away over three years ago now, but I haven’t felt so close to him as I did then, hearing my French family talk about him and share stories of when he visited them. The family dynamic was also so similar to my own at home that it made me that much more homesick too.

Later in the afternoon, the family started to disperse and I took off as well to find Jackie and her good friend, Abby, who were on their six-week post-graduation trip of Europe. I found them at the hostel and we spent the next few days gallivanting around Paris hitting a number of the national monuments that I’d seen but not really experienced. We went inside Notre Dame and the Louvre on our first afternoon together, then headed to the Champs de mars for a picnic on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower.

The next day was spent just outside the city at Versailles and traipsing around the city again, as well as taking some much needed recovery and relaxation time in the hostel.

Once recovered, Jackie and I opted to trek up the street and huge hill to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur where we saw the lights of the city come on, sitting on the steps at the highest point in Paris. We sat talking for a long time about life and where it’s taking us over the Heinekens a man was walking around and selling out of the box. Jackie was about to depart for Barcelona, Italy, and a handful of other places having just started her travels in London and Paris, and I was preparing to go home to the states for an indefinite period of time after ten months abroad, and we were both nervously excited of what would come of our post graduate lives. Still, sitting and discussing it over a drink in one of the most glamorous cities in the world, having traveled around the world together, we decided that things are going to be okay. And that we would keep traveling, no matter what.

It was a sad goodbye the following morning, but I had to catch my train back to Aix for … GRADUATION! Since a few of us were finishing our undergraduate careers in France and missed our ceremony at our respective home campuses, some of the girls decided to send us off in the finest French style. Tessa delivered the most brilliant commencement address I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear, and then we were presented with diplomas (mine is a major in English and French, with a minor in “International Gnome Relations”) and a sunflower. We finished with another picnic in the park, everyone enjoying each other’s company and another sunny day in Aix.

I had planned to only write one post, but this seems like a good stopping point for now, and there’s a lot to tell about our trip to Amsterdam and Brussels, as well as my last week in Aix and some more goodbyes.

On another side note, to all of you who I met in Australia exactly one year ago, my thoughts are forever with you: in the form of daydreams, actual dreams, my obsessive search for plane tickets back to Sydney, and in every last techno-pop-y kind of song that I hear, as well as every other photo I see or outfit I wear, including the I-House soccer t-shirt I’m currently wearing. I can’t begin to tell you all how much I miss you and wish that our session had never ended.

To my family who has made coming home more than worth it and the idea of leaving again violently turn my stomach - no matter how badly I think I want to take off again - I love you and am so, so glad to be home.

Here and there,
Kiley

Playing Catch-Up: A Two Week Recap of Toulouse, Madrid, and Paris

So, I’m about a month behind on my adventures here, so I’ll do my best to be thorough, yet succinct. Here are the general highlights of March and the beginning of April!

I had a few exams the week we came back from break, and I’ve still only received one of those exams back. The French schooling system is probably the single most frustrating thing I’ve encountered here, since there are basically only two, maybe three grades for the semester, and I’ve still no idea how my courses are going. For one of my lit courses, I have a paper due exam week when I’ll also give my oral over a randomly selected passage as well as take the final exam. It’s a little unnerving, but I’m hopeful! Exam schedules were just put out this week, and they’re spaced out pretty well, so as long as I put in the time to study, all should go well.

The weekend after we came back from break, I hopped on a train to Toulouse to visit Matt, one of my friends from high school. I didn’t get in until Friday night, so we spent a few hours catching up over a few drinks at his place before he took me out to one of his favorite bars in town. Nightlife seemed to be pretty good, and we stayed until the bar closed around two. On the way back to Matt’s, we stopped for kebabs, an essential late night snack that we both realized we would miss having in the states. The next morning, we took our time getting up before walking around town. Unfortunately, I was still camera-less at this point, having had my camera stolen in Italy the week before, so I don’t have photos of the pink buildings that Toulouse is known for, la ville rose, as the French call it. We walked through the town square where people were playing touch (rugby), the neat old buildings and town hall bordering the square. There were people all over the river bank, just sitting and relaxing or having lunch, as well as in the couple of little parks we passed through.

We stopped for lunch at a little café on the corner and I had my first taste of foie gras in the salad I ordered. At first it was okay, but my mind got going and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was eating and after a few bites, I handed over the rest to Matt. Foie gras, goose liver, and pâté are hugely popular here, and every once in a while they taste really good, but I’m still kind of hit or miss on whether I like it or not. After lunch, we made our way back to Matt’s place where we hung out for the better part of the afternoon just talking and goofing around on the internet. Matt played me some of the music he and Graham, another high school friend and Matt’s roommate in France, have been working on (check it out here). We spent the evening and night hanging out and playing games with Matt and Graham’s friends, and we also ventured out for another kebab, which may have been the best one I’ve ever had. It was on a pita-type bread instead of the typical tortilla-style and it was overflowing with fries. Delicious. We pretty much crashed once we got back to the dorms, then had a generally lazy Sunday before I caught my train back to Aix on Sunday. Overall, it was a great weekend spent catching up with old friends and getting a little better acquainted with my newest home country!

The following week brought the last of my midterms, as well as visitors from home: Jenn and Brooke! They arrived Thursday with some things from my parents, including the replacement camera I sent them money for, so the rest of these photos will be mine again. We took time to have a French picnic in the park on Friday after my class, giving them some time to recover from their jetlag. We met some of the program girls and had an absolute feast in Parc Jourdan: multiple baguettes, at least five kinds of cheeses, a few kinds of meat, pâté, cookies, and wine. We laid around in the sun for a good part of the afternoon before Jenn, Brooke, and I made our way back to my place to pack for Madrid!

We arrived in the city late at night and basically went straight to bed. Once awake on Saturday, we made our way around the city, going through a few of the parks and into the Rena Sofia Museum where Picasso’s Guernica is kept. What an incredible painting. They had a small mural showing the different stages of how the painting was done. Incredible. I also found possibly my new favorite piece of art, called Packing the Hard Potatoes. Isn’t it cool??

After the museum, we passed by some book vendors on the way to one of the many parks and botanical gardens where we saw tons and tons of bikers and rollerbladers. I’ve never seen so many rollerbladers! And they were doing all kinds of tricks, too. There were so many people out and about. Families, couples, tour groups, all kinds, and they were all being active. There were all kinds of performers all over the place too, playing all different kinds of music. We saw some of the illegal souvenir vendors get chased by the police, which was even more entertaining. We thought about renting a boat to putter around on the lake, but decided against it for the sake of money and instead caught the metro into the main part of the city and put our money to use shopping and eating. I’ll suffice it to say that it was money well spent!

We rocked back up to the hostel around nightfall when we figured out how to spend our night. The hostel had a pub crawl and we’d seen ads for a number of shows, and after consulting the front desk, we went a few doors down and bought tickets for the flamenco show. I’m so glad we did! The dancing was incredible, and the sangria that came with the ticket was unbelievably tasty.

On Sunday, we got up early to get to the tower in the center of the city where you can walk around on the roof and see all of Madrid splayed out in front of you. The photos don’t even do it justice.

On the way back, we stopped for McDonald’s bringing it up to my fifth international McDonald’s experience. I hadn’t meant to try it in every country, but I managed to hit it in Australia (more often than I would have liked, actually!), Italy, and France, so I figured I may as well add Spain to the list. We made our way to the airport, and had a pleasant flight home to Aix where we relaxed inside with some Pizza Capri and movies, since it proved to be a rainy and gloomy day.

On Monday night, I got to take Jenn and Brooke to my conversation exchange family’s house for dinner. I’ve been going to this family’s house once a week for the past few months to speak English with them, and in return, they feed me a French dinner. My “mom”, Corinne, was kind enough to invite us all over, and she definitely pulled out all the stops on that week’s dinner. Grated carrots with a Balsamic dressing, baked eggplant with a marinara sauce, raisins and radishes to go with buttered bread, cheese, and wine, followed by a raspberry tart and chocolate pie I bought and brought for dessert. Everything was absolutely delicious. This past week, I asked Corinne if she would share her recipes with me, and she said she would write some up for me – in English, because she wants to practice! They are such a nice and friendly family, and I’m going to be so sad when my weekly visits come to a finish. The three of us more or less rolled out the door with the guidebooks they loaned me since they knew we would be doing a little traveling around southern France and Paris over the week. Like I said, such a nice family.

The next day, we woke up early to catch the bus with Roz and Leah to go to Cassis, a small town right on the sea with some beautiful beaches. Unfortunately, the weather was still a little gloomy and not quite warm enough for swim suits, so we sat clothed on our towels and played cards for the afternoon. But we felt it was necessary to at least snap a bikini shot, so we went for it despite the cold! Then we got coffees to warm us up, along with an appetizer at one of the cafés on the port and enjoyed the view and sound of the water.

Wednesday took us down to Marseille where we walked around the port, the same place I spent my first weekend in France. I hadn’t been back there since, so it was really nice to revisit in just slightly nicer weather. After the port, we went up to La Dame de la Garde, the beautiful church on the top of the hill. We did some exploring around the area and took our time at the various lookout points, appreciating the city and sea in front of us.

We played host to a number of the girls at my apartment that night where we played card games and chatted. On Thursday, I came back from class to find Jenn and Brooke having shopped and explored Aix for the day. We visited the tea shop together before my night class, and I came back with just enough time to throw down some food and leave for the Hunger Games! The film actually came out a few days earlier in France than it did in the states, so we were all glad to not have to wait any longer to see the movie. And what a great movie it was!

Unfortunately, we went straight back to my place after the movie, since we had to be up at 4am to catch our train up to Paris on Friday morning. Which turned out to be a bit of a fiasco.

We got to the bus stop in plenty of time to catch the 5:20 bus to the train station, only 15 minutes away. What we didn’t anticipate was the accident/spill that had traffic backed up significantly. We realized the police were even turning cars around and forcing them to go back the way they came and started to get worried. We breathed a sigh of relief when the bus reached the front of the line and they let us through. That excitement was short-lived, however, as we were stopped again almost immediately. That’s when the bus driver opened the doors and told us that anyone going to the train station could jump off. He wasn’t joking. So, the three of us got off the bus on the side of the highway around 5:50 along with several other passengers, and began to hike the last leg of the journey to the train station on foot. Oh yeah, Jenn and Brooke had their rolling luggage too. Knowing we only had a few minutes and a solid half or three-quarters of a mile to go, we basically jogged. I assume there was some kind of spill because we jogged over this saw-dusty, powder crap that was sprinkled all over the road. It didn’t help the breathing and running situation any, that’s for sure. We rocked up to the train station and caught the elevator up, seeing that our train was at the platform. Finally, we boarded the train at the first car and no less than a minute later, it started on its way. Whew.

We arrived in Paris three hours later and made our way to our hotel before heading to Montmartre, at which point I realized I forgot my camera at home, so this will be a word heavy section too. Whoops. Anyway, we got off the métro stop and walked a few hundred meters out of the station and around the corner where at least fifty men were all standing, lining the walls, cat-calling us nonstop. I’ve mostly gotten used to the comments men make and the way they look you up and down as you walk by – it’s an inevitable daily occurrence here in France, but I’d never been intimidated until then. Maybe it was because there were so many of them, or maybe because it took us a minute to pick through the crowd so it was nonstop, but I was actually unbelievably uncomfortable and not in the least bit flattered. Just, ew.

We walked around Montmartre seeing all the big attractions, like Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge before heading back to the hotel for a quick nap that turned into a long nap. Well rested, we set back out into the city to hit the other big monuments: Notre Dame, the Louvre, we hired a bike to take us part of the way up the Champs Élysées to l’Arc de Triomphe, then the métro to the Eifel Tower just as it was getting dark. We were walking through the Champs de Mars just as the tower lit up with all the sparkly lights like it does every night before heading to dinner around the corner. That night, we met up with a friend of a friend at a bar a little ways from our hotel before turning in for the night. We got up to get Jenn to the airport for her morning flight, then Brooke and I went back to the Eifel Tower to see it in the light before taking a coffee break. We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon sitting in front of Jardin de Tuileries, the Louvre in one direction and the Champs Élysées to the other. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

I caught my afternoon train home that Saturday to prepare for another school week! That brings me up to the end of March, and there’s still heaps to tell you about the last two weeks, but I’ll cut it there since this post is getting a bit long. I’ll get this next post up before I take off for the UK with Roz and Chelsea next week on our two week spring break! Hope this one finds you all doing well. Love and miss you all!

Here and there,
Kiley