Famille d'accueil

Bonjour from Rennes! 

I've moved into my new home and begun to set up my courses for the semester. It's absolutely crazy to finally be living this dream. It's real and it's not real at the same time.

I'm very happy to be with my host family. I have two teenage brothers, Valentin and Guillaume, and a very little sister, Alisa. She is adopted from Russia. She will have her third birthday in February and it will be a "grande fête" because this year will be her first birthday celebrated in France. Her mother (my host mom) is a single mom. It's a very close family and they love to do things together, and I feel very welcome. Of course I can't understand a word that my host-brothers say because they speak french so quickly, but that will get better (one hopes.)

The house itself is really cute - three stories, tall and thin, in a building with other establishments on both sides. It's in one of the older neighborhoods in Rennes. There is a little garden out back, where the family rabbit and the cat live. My room is at the top of the house, essentially what one would call the loft, and it's essentially my domain. We are right next to a beautiful old church and I can hear the bells toll the hour. I do need to explore this neighborhood a bit more. It's quiet but picturesque. 

Right now, all is new, and I am fearful of being a bad guest! But I will try to make life as easy as possible for everyone, and to not stress so much.  I know life will become more comfortable as I learn the ropes. 

This friday we are all going to hear my host-mom's brother play in his hard-rock band! 

À tout à l'heure!

À bientot, Paris!?

01/21/12

It’s my last night in Paris, and I could be out dancing , losing my self in the hazy light of a club and the heartbeat of the crowd, but instead I have spent the evening mostly alone in the room I share with Stephanie, packing, reflecting, and procrastinating on the academic tasks that still remain. I will depart tomorrow at 2:14 pm to begin my semester in Rennes and leave behind this three-week state of limbo, half in a world of academics, half living in this world of comme-vous-voulez that is Paris; here I am half in the moment, half thinking ahead to what is going to be when I start the next stage of this voyage étrangère.

I did seek a late-night gelato with Stephanie and another girl in our class, Chloe. This was in place of earlier plans to go to a discothèque with some other girls in the group;  I was very much intending to go, resigned to the fact that I wanted to experience more Paris nightlife, and this was my last chance for a while, though I do hope to return in the spring. I didn’t make it up the Eiffel tower or to Édith Pìaf’s grave, after all, or Montmartre! But I digress. Tonight, my mind wanted to go on this excursion, but I think in truth, my soul and my body were sounding a huge resounding no. I’m tired – these last few weeks have taken a lot out of me.

 In truth, I am not entirely happy with this course and its requirements, simply because the number of required sites we must see on our own is so extensive. One begins the day with a light step and a spark of curiosity, and finishes the day’s visits with all the life sapped out of them. This is not the Parisian way. One goes as one pleases ; we go too many places. As such one begins to see in tunnel vision, without the opportunity to really take in and process what one has seen. One museum a day, I can do. Two? Maybe, if the two go well together, such as L’Orangérie, devoted to the Impressionists, and the Musée d’Orsay, art of the 19^th century. Actually, something like that, I’ll be in heaven (I was.) Three? Centre Pompidou (and modern art) at the end of a five-hour excursion? Jamais dans la vie! You cannot ask me to look at a solid blue canvas and accept it as art if I have been walking and riding the metro for hours after a three-hour course in the morning, and I haven’t had coffee since before that class...

But that being said, I really can’t complain. I only regret not having more time to take in this beautiful city. I love to walk along the Seine, to sit on a bridge and be a voyeur... I still have an irrational fear of ordering a coffee by myself, and entering a store that’s not filled with people causes me a bit of pain, if it’s just me and the cashier. Still, I think I have a natural tendency to go through my days independently and Paris has allowed me that. I can navigate the metro myself, and get lost in the street without panicking... I can wander and pass as a french girl if I don’t talk to anyone.

I wonder often what the next stage will be -  will I have friends, will I be able to talk to my host family, will they accept me, will I be happy in the end? I don't have expectations of immediately being comfortable. It will take time. And I'm ready. 

Demain, on ira à Rennes! À tout à l’heure!

Les Invalides (a post better titled "Les Morts")

No words.

The museum there is dedicated to the history of warfare - from  the middle ages until the present. I think could have spent all day in the sections devoted to the history of the World Wars. Who knew? It was rather emotionally exhausting to even try to comprehend that all that passed during my grandparents' lifetime.

And Napoleon's tomb...

What a spectacle. What a man. Also, the fact that one of his horses is preserved in the museum... A little weird.

Also, today I visited the Panthéon and saw the tombs of Marie Curie, Rosseau, Voltaire, Dumas, and Victor Hugo... and a lot of other dead people.

Premières impressions...

Bonjour de Paris!

It’s hard to find time while I’m here to write a blog and each time I try, I end up  getting too overwhelmed thinking about everything I’ve seen and have yet to see, and how to begin, and besides, I’d rather be out exploring and spending time with my classmates in this incredible city than sitting on my computer, but it’s Sunday and for once, I have a few minutes to myself to do as I like and I say that it time to write my first real blog! Not that the internet ever works in our hotel.

I’ve only been here for five days and I really can’t believe all the things I’ve seen and experienced. The medieval part of the Louvre. The Musée du Moyen-age (museum of the middle ages) on La Rue de Cluny. La Sorbonne. L’École des beaux-arts de Paris. Saint-Chappelle. Several other beautiful and churches in our neighborhood (more about that later!) European bars. The Metro. An excursion by train to visit the cathedral of Chartres and receive a lecture-tour there led by Malcolm Miller himself, the premier scholar of Chartres in the world (I can’t even describe how amazing that was, and I didn’t even know that the guy was Malcolm Miller until after the tour. This morning, mass at Notre-Dame de Paris.

That doesn’t even come close to a comprehensive description of what I’ve done, but I hope it’s enough.

A lot of the sites we’ve visited (in small groups as we please) are very close to where we live:  the Latin quarter. This section of Paris got its name because it was the site of the first universities in Paris, and the language of study at the time was Latin). It’s still a center of learning – our  hotel, L’hotel Claude-Bernard is located on the Rue des écoles and you can walk just a little west and find the Rue de la Sorbonne, where one can find – yep, you guessed it, La Sorbonnne, probably the most celebrated center of learning in France! Also, we’re just a few blocks south of the Seine and on the other side is Notre-Dame de Paris.

And just to brag a little bit, because I have a French student visa, I get free admission to most museums (like the Louvre) that ordinarily you would pay a sizable sum of money to go to. Even an international student I.D. card doesn’t always get you in for free, we’ve found.

I love this neighborhood. It’s picturesque (although, really, it’s Paris. Everywhere you go is beautiful.) it’s lively during the day and just a few blocks away, there’s an area for good nightlife – restaurants, crêperies, bars, cafés, greek food, whatever you want, really, and importantly, it’s not always too expensive, although we quickly realized that the cost of living, at least day to day here is much higher than in the United States, but then again, that’s probably because of a key cultural difference. In America, we spend money on things to put in our houses and entertain us at home, and in Paris one goes out and spends money on actually living – eating, drinking, spending time with family and friends! It’s just what you do. Il faut.

If my writing on this blog is a little clumsy, I apologize. It’s hard to type and think in English. We’re speaking French for the majority of the time, and slipping into English isn’t as easy as you might expect. After a day of speaking french all the time, one ends up speaking a weird mix of the two -  the other night several of us went out and we ended up meeting two boys from Holland who only spoke a little French but could converse in English, but for me it was almost impossible to maintain a conversation without unconsciously slipping into French. The boys didn’t understand me most of the time, but I don’t think anyone minded.

It’s a relief to learn that I can function here. I make mistakes all the time, particularly when trying to buy something, and I know it’s painfully obvious that I’m an American, but people here are surprisingly patient, for the most part, and helpful – and they do respond to me in french, at least most of the time, and I can understand. Sometimes if I have to ask for clarification, they quickly resort to English, and that’s frustrating, but it’s not as bad as people had warned me – that no one would speak French with me at all. Granted, the interactions are almost always brief transactions, but I think that people here are much more willing to respect the fact that you are trying to communicate with them in their language and behave as they do (which is more than I can say for the other american students who are also staying in our hotel). Also, I guess that at least some of the time, when I walk by myself, I blend in – some french woman asked me for directions the other night, and of course I didn’t know, but It must mean I’m at least dressing reasonably well – although having seen the french girls, I think I have a long way to go before I can even come close to achieving their style. I didn’t bring enough scarves – just two, and not the ones I should have brought - and if you know me, that doesn’t make any sense. What was I thinking? Luckily, they’re pretty easy to find around here.   

I’m also learning the metro system, and I absolutely love it – you can go anywhere, and if you make a mistake you can just backtrack. And the possibilities are endless - what a change from Northfield, Minnesota, where there’s no where to go.

I think I’m in the right place. 

Tu ferras quoi???

(Written on 01/03/12, without internet until now, 01/11/12 )

I'm sitting in Sea-Tac airport about to board my plane to Chicago, where I will get on another plane and hopefully end up in Paris, of all places.  After over six months of anticipation, the day has finally come, and I can't help thinking that I'm un peu folle. But I'm prepared! One suitcase, one backpack, one worn-out leather neck pouch for my identification documents, seven years of french study, one me.

Of course, in spite of my best efforts to pack lightly, my suitcase is barely under the 50 lb weight limit (I blame the gift for my host family! It's heavy!) and I'm wondering what possessed me to put on the combination of clothes that I pulled on my sleep-deprived body this morning at 5:20 am. My coffee tastes bitter in my mouth and I realized I forgot to brush my teeth at the hotel, oh well, sorry neighbor! I'll try not to breathe on you for the next three hours, sorry about that.

In case you're wondering, I will be spending three weeks in Paris with nine students from Saint Olaf College, and then moving on to study in Rennes, which is located in Bretagne (Brittany), the northwest provence of France. The program is language-intensive and organized through CIEE, and you can find more information about it here.

À bientot!