Rain and Selfishness

One more blog before I settle into a LONG night of studying for my midterms. I have millions of them, and I am only halfway through. I am just now realizing how spoiled I am as an English major at Linfield: Midterms? What midterms? You want to write a paper or two for your midterms? Sure, go ahead! Write about anything you want, and everything will be right. Turn in the papers whenever - never, if you want!

I have so much studying to do this week, I've forgotten to be excited for the vacation coming up in just a couple days. I am a little bit stressed, but...c'est la vie. I'm going to Paris Friday, which still sounds so ridiculous to me, because Paris seems more like a fairytale than a reality. Also, I'm going to England afterwards to see Beth, and hopefully go to the Scottish highlands together to search for Nessie, just in time for Halloween! SO fizzily excited all over about this.

This trip feels like a very selfish trip to me. I am studying in France,a very spoiled white girl thing to do, rather than studying in Ecuador or Mexico like some others. I am studying literature and architecture and art - taking a painting class - and writing in cafes and travelling and spending a lot of time thinking. This is why I was really excited to finally do my travail benevole this past week, our weekly community service that is required by the AUCP. I'm working with students at a community center, helping them with their English homework. I love it. I worked with two little boys, ten and thirteen, and we did their homework and went over English lessons and talked in French about American football. The ten year old, as I was leaving, looked at me with sweet eyes and asked if I would be there the next night. I am SO content to be able to work with the students there. It is energizing to me, in a way that Starbucks never will be. I would really like more of it. THIS is how I want to use French. I want to be really really good at it, so I can teach and help and understand my little students when they talk to me about American football.

Anyways, it's raining and storming here now, just as it has been all day, and so I am plopped in front of the fire with my French-dictionary-bible and a riproaringly fascinating study of French cultural patterns to read. There are a couple leaks in the house somewhere that I can hear. The house is all shut up for the night, but I might leave my inner doors open in my room so I can hear the rain.

Bonne nuit. :)

Sister

My relationship with my host sister has been interesting so far - that is, it has been lovely and baffling at the same time. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I've never had a sister before, am used to dealing with boys, and also the language problems. Always the language. I could apply this statement to anything. For example:

The other day I had an incident on the bus. I think this occurred because I was spacing out and when I looked out the window again, I didn't have any idea where I was. Also, I didn't understand what the driver was saying to me.

I'm not saying that this actually happened to me - just that it's another example of how the excuse of language difficulties can be applied to an everyday situation. Oh - here's another good one:

Today I ordered a delicious-sounding coffee drink at a new cafe. I was given a "tasse" of coffee, along with a huge, sugary almond croissant that I hadn't asked for. Alright, I'll take the huge sugary pastry surprise. I have no choice - I have to eat it now. I didn't understand what I was ordering. Darn.

Anyways. Back to sisters. Anne-Camille my host sister is fifteen and quite wonderful, but there have definitely been times when I have asked myself, "Ok, is this annoying me because of a language/cultural issue, or because of a sister issue?" For instance, this morning my host parents left the house early and Anne-Camille had to ride the bus with me into the city for school instead of getting a ride from her parents. The bus leaves around 8:40, I told her. So, that means we should probably starting walking over there around 8:30. Ok, she said.

At 8:30, I can hear her in the bathroom doing something with her hair. Anne-Camille, I ask. Are you ready? Almost, she replies.

Five minutes later. Anne-Camille, ready? On y va? Ok, I'm coming! she replies.

A minute before the bus is supposed to arrive, we head out the door. We missed the bus, of course, and had to take the next one, which wasn't until an hour later. I didn't have any classes this morning and had been just planning to study in a cafe for my eight billion mid terms this week, but Anne-Camille was late to her first class. I offered to come in with her and explain the situation to her teacher, using my habitual "I'm so sorry. I'm an American. I had some language difficulties, and that's why my hsot sister missed the bus" excuse but she said it would be fine.

Still, missing the bus this morning together was kind of fun, in a weird sort of way. I feel like Anne-Camille and I are progressing into a relationship that is more like a sister thing than just an American student boarding with another teenage girl thing. While I was mildly annoyed this morning, I also realized that this kind of relationship is nice. We are comfortable together, enough to find little things to get annoyed about but still be ok.

This past Sunday, I went for a small hike and picnic lunch with my host family on the sea. Sunday is getting to be the day where I really try to be home and hang out with them, with nothing else planned, because the rest of the week goes so fast and gets so crazy. I was a little hesitant about the picnic, because the son of my host family was home from his boarding school this weekend, and I didn't want to intrude on their family time,. I think this was the first they had seen him since the end of August. I didn't want to be the annoying American student poking my head in and constantly trying to somehow fit into the conversation. But, it worked out. I hung back when I felt like I needed to and just enjoyed observing, which is something I've learned is very important here - learning to be comfortable with just observing and not feeling bad when you're not directly participating.

This kind of goes along with the fact that it is impossible to compare yourself to anyone else while studying abroad, because, while it is very tempting to do so, the only way to get the most out of the experience is to be completely comfortable in your own skin and seek out your own niches, rather than worrying about everyone else is doing. This is important. If I feel myself falling into the trap of comparing myself with others, I end up stressed.

Anyways, the picnic was excellent; anytime I get to visit the sea here I'm ecstatic, and I love watching how cute European families on Sunday trips to the sea interact.

After the picnic, we got home and I was studying when Anne-Camille came over to me and announced, "I'm going to make some cookies."

"Oo!" I said. "What kind?"

"Yours," she said, referring to the cookies I'd made for them the last weekend.

"Ah," I said. "I think I see what you mean. Shall I help you?"

"Yes, please."

So, we made cookies together, and it was ridiculously fun. My host parents and brother were on the computer trying to fill out a a college application for my brother in Canada, and so in between trying to figure out the stupid conversions for the cookie ingredient measurements, I was running into the office to translate for them. It felt amazing being able to help, instead of just sitting around like a bum, not understanding what's going on and feeling helpless. At one point, the power went off, because we were using too many appliances at once. The house went completely dark, and while my dad and brother fumbled around in the blackness for the fuse box located somewhere outside (my dad sporting a cheeky miner's lamp strapped around his head), Anne-Camille looked at me, gasping, "The cookies! The cookies!" Our cookies were sitting half-baked in the powerless oven. Everything turned out alright, though, because soon the power came back on and we ended up eating most of the dough raw anyway.

Emily and Ansley eat their way through Europe

Life falls into a nice rhythm here: classes, free time to write in my favorite cafe, come home to hang out with my host family each evening, go out on the weekends to explore the country of Provence during the day and the city of Aix in the evenings,and delicious food from all of my new best friends, with a few malentudus thrown in each day just to keep things spicy. I am now friends with the man who sells coffee near the Passage Agard, which is a small alley in Aix that looks like it's from Harry Potter. "Chocolate with your coffee?" he asks each time, like he doesn't already know the answer to this question.

I am also friends with the man who seels cheap paninis with Nutella and bananas close to the AUCP. And, I am starting to become good friends with Paul, the guy who smokes his cigar and runs the crepe stand in the late afternoon/evenings. I like the size of aix very much. Even if I'm not exactly friends with someone, I actually recognize many people on the street every day - the old painter who rides my bus, the twelve-year-old kid who always has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

Every week, I think I've found my new favorite place or favorite thing to do in France and then find myself constantly surprised and having to rethink things. That is a good way to look at this study abroad experience: a lot of surprises, many marvelous - more often than not marvelous - and a lot of rethinking the way you've previously viewed the world. On the other hand, there is also a lot of remembering ways you used to think about the world and returning back to those things. I am always surprised by the memories that certain places evoke here. This past weekend, we had an AUCP excursion to Le Camargue, where I found myself constantly reminded of the everglades in Florida, where I used to go quite regularly when I was younger.
It's a region close to the Mediterranean, just west a couple hours from Aix. We saw bulls and flamingos (!) and rode a little train around the countryside that sounded ad moved like a dying chain smoker. The other students decided that it reminded us of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride before it was remodeled, but without any exciting piates or singing. There were swamps and estuaries and more palm trees. There was a little bar/restaurant tucked into a grove of palm trees in the middle of the country. Right in the middle of the swampy country, our professor read us a poem from a local French poet. The sky was muggy and blue. I fell in love.

We visited the "collines du sel", hills of salt, where salt is harvested from the sea. Later, we visited a village called Saint-Mairie-de-la-Mer, which was tiny and tucked right into the crook of the sea. We ate more gelato, of course, and had lunch. Emily and I have decided that this semester is going to be called "Emily and Ansley eat their way through Europe." Each day, I tell myself - no more Nutella! No more pain! No more crepes from Paul! But, later, I immediatly and easily convince myself that life isn't really life without being able to eat whatever you want, especially if you happe to be in France. Diets in France? Just not very practical.
In Saint-Mairie-de-la-Mer, we climbed up unto the roof of an old, old church, and looked out over the village and the sea.

Sunday, I ran a 5K race with Hannah and my host dad and my little sister - called Cours de l'Integration Algernon. It was very relxed, non-competitive, with thousands of participants. The goal was to run with the handicapped and raise money for them as well. it took place in Marseille, right in the city along the sea. The good feelings and energy in the air were so tangible. Hannah turned to me at one point and said, "THIS is what it means ot be in France!" She was so right. Just being there in Marseille and running with everyone else, not having to speak French!, made for a very good Sunday morning.

Tha hard parts of studying abroad so far have been feeling detached from home, isolated, out of control, disconnected, especially with things going on in the States like the elections. There are some days that are SO frustrating. The language drives me crazy - I am head over heels in love with French and also driven mad by it at the same time. A few nights ago at dinner, I thought that my little sister said she pushed a handicapped person while she was running the race Sunday.

"Anne-Camille!" I scolded. "Quel horreur!"

"What?" she replied, looking at me in confusion.

That wasn't what she had actually said, of course, and I still don't know what it was she did say.
But, I feel like here in France we are all given everything necessary to be completely happy - like trips to swampy everglade like villages with flamingos and hills of salt and old churches. I mean really, I can't imagine anything better than that.

MId-terms are next week, then vacance! I am off to Paris to visit a cousin, then England to visit Beth.

Jean-Michel

I am amoureuse with all of my French professors here.

Also, I can feel myself changing. Not changing into someone else - rather, back into an older version of what I used to be, when I was six and sixteen. Does that make any sense? I think everyone should still retain a little bit of who they are when they were six and sixteen. Those were good ages.

I broke my camera in a Roman monument Saturday. But , I made up for this tragedy later on by using a Turkish toilet for the first time and feeling extremely proud. Anyways, a few more straggler pictures from my dead camera.

A Brief but Exciting Excursion on the Wrong Bus. And Wine.

A little town in Provence that I am in love with.

The magical ochre forests! This is where we lost Pam, our professor. No, "Pam" is not a French name - she is from England.

Here I am holding up an old Roman bridge all by myself.

Tuesday evening, around seven I got on the bus at the same bus stop I usually use after school, surrounded by punk French middle schoolers who all look like they're about twenty and who all smoke already. The following is an account of my train of thoughts on this bus after I had hopped aboard:

Hey. These people are not my bus people.
This driver is not my bus driver. This route is not my bus route.
Oh. I'm on the wrong bus. Cool. Well, at least I'm hopefully going in the right direction - it feels like I am - and maybe I can find another stop near the house and walk. Oh, wait - no, I'm not going in the right direction. This is interesting. I'm not in the city at all anymore. I'm in a part of the country that I've never been.
Ok. Huh. What to do now.
Yeah. Time to get off this bus.

I got off and was stranded for awhile, but luckily managed to re-find the same bus I had just dismounted, which was then headed back toward the city, and - after smiling cheerily at the same driver I had just bid bonsoir to fifteen minutes before - I rode back to the centre-ville and found the correct bus to go home. If it all sounds slightly ridiculous, that's because it was. Darn the stupid French autobus. Every time, I think I've mastered the system, I go and take the wrong bus into the wrong part of the country and wander around lost again for awhile.

This evening we had our first "Degustation de vin" class - wine-tasting. And yes, we call this school here. I love the French.

I have a new favorite wine. Though normally I prefer red, (perhaps this is because of my hearty Hungarian blood) it is a white wine. It is made from the grape called Muscat noir - no idea what this is in English - but it has a slight orangey color, and it tastes like fall and warm caramel. I know, I know - I sound like a true wine connoisseur. All that vocab I learned this evening put to good work now - it tastes like "fall" and "caramel" and is "orangey." It is apparently similar to a port wine, and comes from the Provence region. Delicious. Someone in the class put it very well: "I just want to go to sleep in this wine." Me too.

We tasted four different kinds of wine. The class got out around seven fifteen, too early to have had dinner yet, and yet lunch for all of us was six or seven hours before. We did not eat anything during the class. The noise level increased considerably as the class went on, and we were all a bit tipsy and giggly as we said goodbye to the professor. When I got home, I eagerly told my host dad that I have a new favorite wine. He told me a couple weeks ago that he is "happy to have someone to drink with", since my host mom isn't too partial to alcohol. He excitedly opened up a random cabinet in the living room, which, I then discovered, is full of wine! Woo! Though I was already lightheaded and in need of food, he poured me another small glass.

"Was it like this?" he asked.
I drank some. More of that caramel orangey loveliness. I finished the glass quickly.
"Yep. Yep. Definitely like that."

It was a good evening.

Some things I miss from the States:
Football (americain.) Tall, syrupy flavored drinks named things like "soy hazelnut mocha" or "pumkin spice latte." Brothers. Being able to easily watch the presidential debates on TV, at times other than three in the morning. Roommate. My notebooks filled with writing and notes. Linfield.

Still, these are just things that I miss, not things that I feel miserable about. Walking home from the bus stop tonight, the fall stars were very marvelous to look at. I was very, very content.

Malentendus

In our classes at the AUCP this past week, we have been discussing "malentendus" - misunderstandings which more specifically involve some mishap with the differences in language or culture. These darn little malentendus pop up all over the place here, like pesky mosquitos that creep into your sleeping bag during the night and leave you scratching a red bump in the morning. One such incident occured this week, when I was eating dinner with my language partner (the AUCP requires us to meet weekly with a local French student, in order to speak one hour in English and one hour in French.) We ordered pizzas, which are quite light and thin and unlike the pizzas in the States. Mine was big, so I jokingly told my partner I would have to take some home for breakfast the next day. I laughed. He looked at me in confusion and smiled perplexedly. When the waiter came, I asked for a doggy bag to take the rest with me.

"I don't know what you are talking about," the waiter said.

I looked sadly at my pizza and realized I woulnd't be able to take it with me. My professor in our Cultural Patterns class said that this situation occured because the French don't have doggy bags. One does not go out to a restaurant for the food; one goes for the experience. It's the atmosphere, rather than the food, that is the most important part. I, the greedy little American used to hoarding my things like a squirrel, did not know this.

Speaking of food: gelato, warm crepes with Nutella, baguettes with chevre (goat cheese) and tartines with fig jam and ham quiche and smooth caramelly chocolate from Switzerland and fresh peaches and apples from the outdoor market and fresh salads with champignons (mushrooms) and pain du chocolat and croissants...

Yesterday was Sunday, and my host family took Emily, Hannah, and me to St. Victoire - the mountain near Aix that frequents many Cezanne paintings. "It's not too hard of a hike," said my host dad. "Just bring water and a pack and good walking shoes." Thus begins another malentendu...

We took off at the foot of the mountain quite cheerfully, walking alongside a lake with the clearest water I've ever seen, which is apparently where our drinking water comes from. In the distance stood a gray, ominous looking rocky crag, rising up to a sharp point high into the sky, where we could see the outline of a cross. "That's incredible!" I said. "That's where we're headed," my host dad said. Emily and Hannah and I looked at each other and giggled nervously. "Ok, right," I said, smiling and nodding. I didn't really udnerstand what he had said, but I've discovered sometimes the best thing to do is to simply smile and nod and scramble to figure out what is actually happening later.

Two hours later, we discovered that, no, really - we're headed to the pointy craggy top of this mountain, up a trail that mainly requires leaping from rock to rock like frogs leaping across lilypads in a pond. Evidently, I had misunderstood the meaning of a lovely Sunday trip to the mountain. The French, by the way, don't believe in switchbacks.

Reaching the summit was so worth it, however. There was a giant cross, and a paritally abandoned, lonely little church, and my host parents had packed a delicious picnic lunch for us of bauguettes and cheese and pâté and fruit and chocolate. My dad busted out a bottle of wine to "celebrate" our victory of reaching the summit. We brought along Vodka, by the way, the little dog, and she nearly crumbled with exhaustion by the time we took a break for lunch at the top. She hopefully sniffed my cup of wine, but I thought that would have been a horrid idea.

The way back down was also quite an adventure, sliding down the rocks and hopping from one to another with very little control over where we landed. My favorite part was when I looked back to see Emily behind me, scooting down a particularly steep descent on her bottom.

This past Saturday, all the museums in Aix were free, because of the Jour de Patrimoine. We visited the art museam and were able to see some of the works of Cezanne, Picasso, and Granet, of whom I'd never heard before. Now I think he is one of my favorite painters! It is so hard to describe the feeling of seeing these famous paintings, studying the settings, and realizing, "Wait a minute...I live here!"

Friday night I went on a glorious bike ride through the country surrounding my house. Afterwards, my host dad came home from work and declared ebulliently, "It's the weekend! Time to party!" We ate dinner together, and I watched France's version of American Idol with my little sister. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

This weekend marked the end of our first week of class. We have so much free time here to wander around the city exploring hidden corners, to gaze at the expensive clothing shops longingly, to stroll down the rows of venders on the market days, breathing in the fresh spices. This week, however, was difficult in some ways that the first week wasn't. I felt more tired, a bit more overwhelmed with things, a bit more frustrated with the language and not being able to fully express myself right on the spot, without having to search through a dictionary while my host family waits patiently, or repeating stupidly "Um...uh...um...you know...when you take the thing over to that one place...um...what's it called?..um...shoot." I think the first week was easier in a way because I was still so overjoyed to just be in France. Any interaction I had with someone in French was something to celebrate, no matter how simple. Now, I'm past the simple interactions and really want to just be myself again. I've never before realized how much I rely on words to get to know others and let them get to know me.

Still, I feel like our classes are relating really well to our daily communication necessities. I love all my professors, and I am reminding myself to take one thing at a time. I'm celebrating the little things. For instance, today I figured out how to check my voicemails on my French cellphone. Magnifique!

A La Mer

Something I learned today:

I love hanging up my laundry in the yard to dry. With the Provincial wind blowing, and the sun shining, and that September-y feeling in the air, it's rather perfect.

Finally, here are some photos. My first day here, my host mom and sister took me too Cassis, a little village on the sea. There was a lighthouse, and we had the most delicious gelato.